^^^^f^lip^ 


Iknlcfterbocficr  IRuggets 


Nugget—"  A  diminutive  mass  of  precious  m.etal 


20  VOI,S.  NOW   READY 
For  full  list  see  end  of  this  volume 


Essays  of  Eli  a 


CHARLES  LAMB 


NEW   YORK  AXD    LONDON 

G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 
Ube  Tftnicfecrbocfter  press 


Press  ol 
P.  Putnam's  sons 
New  York 


CONTENTS. 


The  South-Sea  House 

Oxford  in  the  Vacation 

Christ's  Hospital  Five-and-Thirty  Years  Ago 
The  Two  Races  of  Men       .... 

New  Year's  Eve 

Mrs.  Battle's  Opinions  on  Whist  . 

A  Chapter  on  Ears 

All  Fools'  day 

A  Quakers'  Meeting 

The  Old  and  the  New  School-Master 
Imperfect  Sympathies       .... 

Witches,  and  Other  Night  Fears  . 
Valentine's  Day   ...... 

My  Relations  ..... 

Mackery  End,  in  Hertfordshire  . 

My  First  Play 

Modern  Gallantry 

The  Old  Benchers  of  the  Inner  Temple 

Grace  before  Meat 

Vol.  I.  iii 


3 

17 

27 
50 
60 
71 
83 
92 
98 
107 
122 
137 
148 

154 
165 
174 
182 
190 
209 


2230735 


iv  Contents 

Dream-Children  :  A  Revery 221 

Distant  Correspondents 228 

The  Praise  of  Chimney-Sweepers  .  .  239 
A  Complaint  of  the  Decay  of  Beggars  in  the 

Metropolis 252 

A  Dissertation  upon  Roast  Pig  265 
A  Bachelor's  Complaint  of  the  Behavior  of 

Married  People 278 

On  Some  of  the  Old  Actors 290 


ESSAYS  OF  BI.IA 


CO    ^^M.  .. 


ELIA 


THE  SOUTH-SEA  HOUSE. 

READER,  in  thy  passage  from  the  Bank — 
where  thou  hast  been  receiving  thy  half- 
yearly  dividends  (supposing  thou  art  a  lean 
annuitant  like  myself) — to  the  Flower  Pot,  to 
secure  a  place  for  Dalston,  or  Shacklewell,  or 
some  other  thy  suburban  retreat  northerly, — 
didst  thou  never  observe  a  melancholy-looking, 
handsome,  brick  and  stone  edifice,  to  the  left — 
where  Threadneedle-street  abuts  upon  Bishops- 
gate?  I  dare  say  thou  hast  often  admired  its 
magnificent  portals,  ever  gaping  wide,  and  dis- 
closing to  view  a  grave  court,  with  cloisters, 
and  pillars,  with  few  or  no  traces  of  goers-in  or 
comers-out, — a  desolation  something  like  Bal- 
clutha's.* 

This  was  once  a  house  of  trade, — a  centre  of 
busy  interests.     The  throng  of  merchants  was 


*  I  passed  by  the  walls  of  Balclutha,  and  they  were 
desolate.— OssiAN. 


Bsgagg  of  JElia 


here — the  quick  pulse  of  gain — and  here  some 
forms  of  business  are  still  kept  up,  though  the 
soul  be  long  since  fled.  Here  are  still  to  be 
seen  stately  porticos ;  imposing  staircases,  ofifices 
roomy  as  the  state  apartments  in  palaces — de- 
serted, or  thinly  peopled  with  a  few  straggling 
clerks ;  the  still  more  sacred  interiors  of  court 
and  committee-rooms,  with  venerable  faces  of 
beadles,  door-keepers — directors  seated  in  form 
on  solemn  days  (to  proclaim  a  dead  dividend), 
at  long  worm-eaten  tables,  that  have  been  ma- 
hogany, with  tarnished  gilt-leather  coverings, 
supporting  massy  silver  inkstands  long  since 
dry  ; — the  oaken  wainscots  hung  with  pictures 
of  deceased  governors  and  sub-governors,  of 
Queen  Anne,  and  the  two  first  monarchs  of  the 
Brunswick  dynasty  ; — huge  charts,  which  sub- 
sequent discoveries  have  antiquated ;  dusty- 
maps  of  Mexico,  dim  as  dreams, — and  sound- 
ings of  the  Bay  of  Panama !  The  long  passages 
hung  with  buckets,  appended,  in  idle  row,  to 
walls,  whose  substance  might  defy  any,  short 
of  the  last,  conflagration  : — with  vast  ranges  of 
cellarage  under  all,  where  dollars  and  pieces-of- 
eight  once  lay,  an  "unsunned  heap,"  for  Mam- 
mon to  have  solaced  his  solitary  heart  withal, — 
long  since  dissipated,  or  scattered  into  air  at 
the  blast  of  the  breaking  of  that  famous 
BuBBlyE. 


Zbc  SoutbsSea  Ibouse 


Such  is  the  South-Sea  House.  At  least, 
such  it  was  forty  years  ago,  when  I  knew  it, — a 
magnificent  relic  !  What  alteration  may  have 
been  made  in  it  since,  I  have  had  no  opportuni- 
ties of  verifj-ing.  Time,  I  take  for  granted,  has 
not  freshened  it.  No  wind  has  resuscitated  the 
face  of  the  sleeping  waters.  A  thicker  crust  by 
this  time  stagnates  upon  it.  The  moths  that 
were  then  battening  upon  its  obsolete  ledgers 
and  day-books,  have  rested  from  their  depreda- 
tions, but  other  light  generations  have  suc- 
ceeded, making  fine  fretwork  among  their 
single  and  double  entries.  Layers  of  dust  have 
accumulated  (a  superfcetation  of  dirt!)  upon  the 
old  layers,  that  seldom  used  to  be  disturbed, 
save  by  some  curious  finger,  now"  and  then,  in- 
quisitive to  explore  the  mode  of  bookkeeping 
in  Queen  Anne's  reign  ;  or,  with  less  hallowed 
curiosity,  seeking  to  unveil  some  of  the  mys- 
teries of  that  tremendous  hoax,  whose  extent 
the  petty  peculators  of  our  day  look  back  upon 
with  the  same  expression  of  incredulous  ad- 
miration, and  hopeless  ambition  of  rivalry,  as 
would  become  the  puny  face  of  modern  con- 
spiracy contemplating  the  Titan  size  of  Vaux's 
superhuman  plot. 

Peace  to  the  manes  of  the  Bubble  !  Silence 
and  destitution  are  upon  thy  walls,  proud  house, 
for  a  memorial  ! 


Bssags  of  J&Ua 


Situated  as  thou  art,  in  the  very  heart  of 
stirring  and  living  commerce, — amid  the  fret 
and  fever  of  speculation, — with  the  Bank,  and 
the  'Change,  and  the  India-House  about  thee, 
in  the  heydey  of  present  prosperity,  with  their 
important  faces,  as  it  were,  insulting  thee,  their 
poorneighbor  out  of  bushtess, — to  the  idle  and 
merely  contemplative,  —  to  such  as  me,  old 
house  !  there  is  a  charm  in  thy  quiet :  —  a 
cessation — a  coolness  from  business — an  indo- 
lence almost  cloistral  —  which  is  delightful ! 
With  what  reverence  have  I  paced  thy  great 
bare  rooms  and  courts  at  eventide  !  They 
spoke  of  the  past  : — the  shade  of  some  dead 
accountant,  with  visionary  pen  in  ear,  would 
flit  by  me,  stiff  as  in  life.  Living  accounts  and 
accountants  puzzle  me.  I  have  no  skill  in 
figuring.  But  thy  great  dead  tomes,  which 
scarce  three  degenerate  clerks  of  the  present 
day  could  lift  from  their  enshrining  shelves — 
with  their  old  fantastic  flourishes,  and  decora- 
tive rubric  interlacings — their  sums  in  triple 
columniations,  set  down  with  formal  super- 
fluity of  ciphers — with  pious  sentences  at  the 
beginning,  without  which  our  religious  ances- 
tors never  ventured  to  open  a  book  of  business, 
or  bill  of  lading — the  costly  vellum  covers  of 
some  of  them  almost  persuading  us  that  we  are 
got  into  some  better  library, — are  very  agree- 


^be  Soutb*Sea  Ibouse 


able  and  edifying  spectacles.  I  can  look  upon 
these  defunct  dragoons  witli  complacency.  The 
hea\^,  odd-shaped,  ivory -handled  penknives  (our 
ancestors  had  every  thing  on  a  larger  scale 
than  we  have  hearts  for)  are  as  good  as  any 
thing  from  Herculaneum.  The  pounce-boxes 
of  our  days  have  gone  retrograde. 

The  very  clerks  which  I  remember  in  the 
South-Sea  House — I  speak  of  forty  years  back 
— had  an  air  very  diflferent  from  those  in  the 
public  ofi&ces  that  I  have  had  to  do  with  since. 
They  partook  of  the  genius  of  the  place. 

They  were  mostly  (for  the  establishment  did 
not  admit  of  superfluous  salaries)  bachelors. 
Generally  (for  they  had  not  much  to  do)  per- 
sons of  a  curious  and  speculative  turn  of  mind. 
Old-fashioned,  for  a  reason  mentioned  before. 
Humorists,  for  they  were  of  all  descriptions  ; 
and,  not  having  been  brought  together  in  early 
life  (which  has  a  tendency  to  assimilate  the 
members  of  corporate  bodies  to  each  other),  but 
for  the  most  part  placed  in  this  house  in  ripe 
or  middle  age,  they  necessarily  carried  into 
it  their  separate  habits  and  oddities,  unquali- 
fied, if  I  may  so  speak,  as  into  a  common  stock. 
Hence  they  formed  a  sort  of  Noah's  ark.  Odd 
fishes.  A  lay-monastery.  Domestic  retainers 
in  a  great  house,  kept  more  for  show  than  for 
use.     Yet  pleasant  fellows,  full  of  chat, — and 


8  JBsea^s  of  Blia 


not  a  few  among  them  had  arrived  at  considera- 
ble proficiency  on  the  German  flute. 

The  cashier  at  that  time  was  one  Bvans,  a 
Cambro-Briton.  He  had  something  of  the  cho- 
leric complexion  of  his  countrymen  stamped 
on  his  visage,  but  was  a  worthy,  sensible  man 
at  bottom.  He  wore  his  hair,  to  the  last,  pow- 
dered and  frizzed  out,  in  the  fashion  which  I  re- 
member to  have  seen  in  caricatures  of  what  was 
termed  in  my  young  days,  Maccaronies.  He 
was  the  last  of  that  race  of  beaux.  Melancholy 
as  a  gibcat,  over  his  counter  all  the  forenoon,  I 
think  I  see  him  making  up  his  cash  (as  they 
call  it)  with  tremulous  fingers,  as  if  he  feared 
every  one  about  him  was  a  defaulter;  in  his 
hypochondry  ready  to  imagine  himself  one  ; 
haunted  at  least  with  the  idea  of  the  possibility 
of  his  becoming  one  ;  his  trustful  visage  clear- 
ing up  a  little  over  his  roast  neck  of  veal  at  An- 
derton's  at  two  (where  his  picture  still  hangs, 
taken  a  little  before  his  death  by  desire  of  the 
master  of  the  coffee-house,  which  he  had  fre- 
quented for  the  last  five  and  twenty  years),  but 
not  attaining  the  meridian  of  its  animation  till 
evening  brought  on  the  hour  of  tea  and  visit- 
ing. The  simultaneous  sound  of  his  well- 
known  rap  at  the  door  with  the  stroke  of  the 
clock  announcing  six,  was  a  topic  of  never-fail- 
ing mirth  in  the  families  which  this  dear  old 


Cbe  Soutb=Sca  1bou6e 


bachelor  gladdened  with  his  presence.  Then 
was  his  forte,  his  glorified  hour  !  How  would 
Le  chirp,  and  expand,  over  a  muffin  !  How 
would  he  dilate  into  secret  history.  His  coun- 
trymen, Pennanthimself  in  particular,  could  not 
be  more  eloquent  than  he  in  relation  to  old  and 
new  London — the  site  of  old  theatres,  churches, 
streets  gone  to  decay — where  Rosamond's  Pond 
stood — the  Mulberry-gardens — and  the  Conduit 
in  Cheap — with  many  a  pleasant  anecdote,  de- 
rived from  paternal  tradition,  of  those  grotesque 
figures  which  Hogarth  has  immortalized  in  his 
picture  of  Noon, — the  worthy  descendants  of 
those  heroic  confessors  who,  flying  to  this  coun- 
try from  the  wrath  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and 
his  dragoons,  kept  alive  the  flame  of  pure  reli- 
gion in  the  sheltering  obscurities  of  Hog  Lane, 
and  the  vicinity  of  the  Seven  Dials  ! 

Deputy,  under  Bvans,  was  Thomas  Tame. 
He  had  the  air  and  stoop  of  a  nobleman.  You 
would  have  taken  him  for  one,  had  you  met 
him  in  one  of  the  passages  leading  to  Westmin- 
ster Hall.  By  stoop,  I  mean  that  gentle  bending 
of  the  body  forwards,  which,  in  great  men, 
must  be  supposed  to  be  the  effect  of  an  habitual 
condescending  attention  to  the  applications  of 
their  inferiors.  While  he  held  you  in  converse, 
you  felt  strained  to  the  height  in  the  colloquy. 
The   conference   over,  you  were   at  leisure   to 


lo  :606aB6  of  :i£Ua 

smile  at  the  comparative  insignificance  of  the 
pretensions  which  had  just  awed  you.  His  in- 
tellect was  of  the  shallowest  order.  It  did  not 
reach  to  a  saw  or  a  proverb.  His  mind  was  in 
its  original  state  of  white  paper.  A  sucking- 
babe  might  have  posed  him.  What  was  it 
then  ?  Was  he  rich  ?  Alas !  no.  Thomas 
Tame  was  very  poor.  Both  he  and  his  wife 
looked  outwardly  gentlefolks,  when  I  fear  all 
was  not  well  at  all  times  within.  She  had  a 
neat  meagre  person,  which  it  was  evident  she 
had  not  sinned  in  over-pampering ;  but  in  its 
veins  was  noble  blood.  She  traced  her  descent, 
by  some  labyrinth  of  relationship  which  I  never 
thoroughly  understood, — much  less  can  explain 
with  any  heraldic  certainty  at  this  time  of  day, 
to  the  illustrious  but  unfortunate  house  of  Der- 
wentwater.  This  was  the  secret  of  Thomas' 
stoop.  This  was  the  thought — the  sentiment — 
the  bright  solitary  star  of  your  lives — ye  mild 
and  happy  pair — which  cheered  you  in  the 
night  of  intellect,  and  in  the  obscurity  of  your 
station  !  This  was  to  you  instead  of  riches,  in- 
stead of  rank,  instead  of  glittering  attainments  ; 
and  it  was  worth  them  all  together.  You  in- 
sulted none  with  it ;  but  while  you  wore  it  as  a 
piece  of  defensive  armor  only,  no  insult  like- 
wise could  reach  you  through  it.  Deciis  et  sola- 
fnen. 


^be  Soutb^Sea  Ibouse 


Of  quite  another  stamp  was  the  then  account- 
ant, John  Tipp.  He  neither  pretended  to  high 
blood,  nor,  in  good  truth,  cared  one  fig  about 
the  matter.  He  "thought  an  accountant  the 
greatest  character  in  the  world,  and  himself  the 
greatest  accountant  in  it."  Yet  John  was  not 
without  his  hobby.  The  fiddle  relieved  his  va- 
cant hours.  He  sang,  certainly,  with  other 
notes  than  to  the  Orphean  lyre.  He  did,  in- 
deed, scream  and  scrape  most  abominably.  His 
fine  suite  of  official  rooms  in  Threadneedle- 
street,  which,  without  any  thing  very  substan- 
tial appended  to  them,  were  enough  to  enlarge 
a  man's  notions  of  himself  that  lived  in  them 
(I  know  not  who  is  the  occupier  of  them  nov/), 
resounded  fortnightly  to  the  notes  of  a  concert 
of  "sweet  breasts,"  as  our  ancestors  would  have 
called  them,  culled  from  club-rooms  and  or- 
chestras— chorus-singers — first  and  second  vio- 
loncellos— double  basses — and  clarionets, — who 
ate  his  cold  mutton  and  drank  his  punch  and 
praised  his  ear.  He  sate  like  Lord  Midas 
among  them.  But  at  the  desk  Tipp  was  quite 
another  sort  of  creature.  Thence  all  ideas  that 
were  purely  ornamental  were  banished.  You 
could  not  speak  of  any  thing  romantic  without 
rebuke.  Politics  were  excluded.  A  newspaper 
was  thought  too  refined  and  abstracted.  The 
whole  duty  of  man  consisted  in  writing  off"  di\d- 


jeesa^s  of  Blfa 


dend  warrants.  The  striking  of  the  annual 
balance  in  the  company's  books  (which,  per- 
haps, differed  from  the  balance  of  last  year  in 
the  sum  of  25/.  is.  6d.)  occupied  his  days  and 
nights  for  a  month  previous.  Not  that  Tipp 
was  blind  to  the  deadness  of  things  (as  they  call 
them  in  the  city)  in  his  beloved  house,  or  did 
not  sigh  for  a  return  of  the  old  stirring  days 
when  South-Sea  hopes  were  young  (he  was 
indeed  equal  to  the  wielding  of  any  of  the  most 
intricate  accounts  of  the  most  flourishing  com- 
pany in  these  or  those  days)  ;  but  to  a  genuine 
accountant  the  difference  of  proceeds  is  as 
nothing.  The  fractional  farthing  is  as  dear  to 
his  heart  as  the  thousands  which  stand  before 
it.  He  is  the  true  actor,  who,  whether  his  part 
be  a  prince  or  a  peasant,  must  act  it  with  like 
intensity.  With  Tipp  form  was  every  thing. 
His  life  was  formal.  His  actions  seemed  ruled 
with  a  ruler.  His  pen  was  not  less  erring  than 
his  heart.  He  made  the  best  executor  in  the 
world  ;  he  was  plagued  with  incessant  executor- 
ships accordingly,  which  excited  his  spleen  and 
soothed  his  vanity  in  equal  ratios.  He  would 
sw^ear  (for  Tipp  swore)  at  the  little  orphans, 
whose  rights  he  would  guard  with  a  tenacity 
like  the  grasp  of  the  dying  hand  that  commend- 
ed their  interests  to  his  protection.  With  all 
this  there  was  about  him  a  sort  of  timidity  (his 


^be  Soutb*Sea  tbouse  13 

few  enemies  used  to  give  it  a  worse  name),  a 
something  which,  in  reverence  to  the  dead,  we 
will  place,  if  you  please,  a  little  on  this  side  of 
the  heroic.  Nature  certainly  had  been  pleased 
to  endow  John  Tipp  wnth  a  sufficient  measure 
of  the  principle  of  self-preservation.  There  is 
a  cowardice  which  we  do  not  despise,  because  it 
has  nothing  base  or  treacherous  in  its  elements  ; 
it  betrays  itself,  not  you  ;  it  is  mere  tempera- 
ment ;  the  absence  of  the  romantic  and  enter- 
prising ;  it  sees  a  lion  in  the  way,  and  will  not, 
with  Fortinbras,  "  greatly  find  quarrel  in  a 
straw,"  w^hen  some  supposed  honor  is  at  stake. 
Tipp  never  mounted  the  box  of  a  stage-coach  in 
his  life,  or  leaned  against  the  rails  of  a  balcony, 
or  walked  upon  the  ridge  of  a  parapet,  or 
looked  down  a  precipice,  or  let  off  a  gun,  or 
went  upon  a  water  party,  or  would  willingly  let 
you  go,  if  he  could  have  helped  it ;  neither  was 
it  recorded  of  him  that,  for  lucre  or  for  intimida- 
tion, he  ever  forsook  friend  or  principle. 

Whom  next  shall  we  summon  from  the  dusty 
dead,  in  whom  common  qualities  become  un- 
common ?  Can  I  forget  thee,  Henry  Man,  the 
wit,  the  polished  man  of  letters,  the  author,  of 
the  South-Sea  House,  who  never  enteredst  thy 
office  in  a  morning,  or  quittedst  it  in  midday 
(what  didst  thou  in  an  office  ?)  without  some 
quirk   that  left  a  sting  ?     Thy  jibes   and   thy 


14  :i£60ag0  of  Blia 

jokes  are  now  extinct,  or  survive  but  in  two 
forgotten  volumes,  which  I  had  the  good  fortune 
to  rescue  from  a  stall  in  Barbican,  not  three 
days  ago,  and  found  thee  terse,  fresh,  epigram- 
matic, as  alive.  Thy  wit  is  a  little  gone  by  in 
these  fastidious  days — thy  topics  are  staled  by 
the  "new-born  gauds  "  of  the  time, — but  great 
thou  used  to  be  in  Public  Ledgers,  and  in 
Chronicles,  upon  Chatham  and  Shelburne,  and 
Rockingham,  and  Howe,  and  Burgoyne,  and 
Clinton,  and  the  war  which  ended  in  the  tearing 
from  Great  Britain  her  rebellious  colonies, — 
and  Keppel,  and  Wilkes,  and  Sawbridge,  and 
Bull,  and  Dunning,  and  Pratt,  and  Richmond, — 
and  such  small  politics. 

A  little  less  facetious,  and  a  great  deal  more 
obstreperous,  was  fine  rattling,  rattle-headed 
Plumer.  He  was  descended — not  in  a  right 
line,  reader,  (for  his  lineal  pretensions,  like  his 
personal,  favored  a  little  of  the  sinister  bend) — 
from  the  Plumers  of  Hertfordshire.  So  tradi- 
tion gave  him  out,  and  certain  family  features 
not  a  little  sanctioned  the  opinion.  Certainly 
old  Walter  Plumer  (his  reputed  author)  had 
been  a  rake  in  his  days,  and  visited  much  in 
Italy,  and  had  seen  the  world.  He  was  uncle, 
bachelor-uncle,  to  the  fine  old  whig  still  living, 
who  has  represented  the  county  in  so  many 
successive  parliaments,  and  has  a  fine  old  man- 


XLbc  Soutb^Sea  Ibouse  15 

sion  near  Ware.  Walter  flomished  in  George 
the  Second's  days,  and  was  the  same  who  was 
summoned  before  the  House  of  Commons  about 
a  business  of  franks,  with  the  old  Duchess  of 
Marlborough.  You  may  read  of  it  in  Johnson's 
"  Life  of  Cave. "  Cave  came  off  cleverly  in  that 
business.  It  is  certain  our  Plumer  did  nothing 
to  discountenance  the  rumor.  He  rather 
seemed  pleased  whenever  it  was,  with  all 
gentleness,  insinuated.  But,  besides  his  family 
pretensions,  Plumer  was  an  engaging  fellow, 
and  sang  gloriously. 

Not  so  sweetly  sang  Plumer  as  thou  sangest, 
mild,  childlike,  pastoral  M.  ;  a  flute's  breath- 
ing less  divinely  whispering  than  thy  Arcadian 
melodies,  when,  in  tones  worthy  of  Arden,  thou 
didst  chant  that  song  sung  by  Amiens  to  the 
banished  Duke,  which  proclaims  the  winter 
wind  more  lenient  than  for  a  man  to  be  un- 
grateful. Thy  sire  was  old  surly  M.,  the  un- 
approachable church-warden  of  Bishopsgate. 
He  knew  not  what  he  did,  when  he  begat  thee, 
like  spring,  gentle  offspring  of  blustering 
winter : — only  unfortunate  in  thy  ending, 
which  should  have  been  mild,  conciliatory, 
swan-like. 

Much  remains  to  sing.  Many  fantastic 
shapes  rise  up,  but  they  must  be  mine  in  pri- 
vate ; — already  I  have  fooled  the  reader  to  the 


i6  JEssags  of  :6lia 

top  of  his  bent ; — else  could  I  omit  that  strange 
creature  Woollett,  who  existed  in  trying  the 
question  and  bought  litigations  ? — and  still 
stranger,  inimitable,  solemn  Hepworth,  from 
whose  gravity  Newton  might  have  deduced  the 
law  of  gravitation.  How  profoundly  would  he 
nib  a  pen — with  what  deliberation  would  he 
wet  a  wafer ! 

But  it  is  time  to  close — night's  wheels  are 
rattling  fast  over  me — it  is  proper  to  have  done 
with  this  solemn  mockery. 

Reader,  what  if  I  have  been  playing  with 
thee  all  this  while  ? — peradventure  the  very 
names,  which  I  have  summoned  up  before  thee, 
are  fantastic — insubstantial — like  Henry  Pim- 
pernel, and  old  John  Naps  of  Greece. 

Be  satisfied  that  something  answering  to 
them  has  had  a  being.  Their -importance  is 
from  the  past. 


OXFORD  IX  THE  VACATION. 

Casting  a  preparatory  glance  at  the  bottom 
of  this  article — as  the  wary  connoisseur  in 
prints,  with  cursory  eye,  (which,  while  it  reads, 
seems  as  though  it  read  not,)  never  fails  to  con- 
sult the  qiiis  sculpsit  in  the  corner,  before  he 
pronounces  some  rare  piece  to  be  a  Vivares,  or 
a  Woollett — methinks  I  hear  you  exclaim, 
Reader,  Who  is  Elia  ? 

Because  in  my  last  I  tried  to  divert  thee  with 
some  half- forgotten  humors  of  some  old  clerks 
defunct,  in  an  old  house  of  business,  long  since 
gone  to  decay,  doubtless  you  have  already  set 
me  down  in  your  mind  as  one  of  the  self-same 
college — a  votary  of  the  desk — a  notched  and 
cropt  scrivener — one  that  sucks  his  sustenance, 
as  certain  sick  people  are  said  to  do,  through  a 
quill. 

Well,  I  do  agnize  something  of  the  sort.  I 
confess  that  it  is  my  humor,  my  fancy — in  the 
forepart  of  the  day,  when  the  mind  of  your  man 
of  letters  requires  some  relaxation  (and  none 
better  than  such  as  at  first  sight  seems  most 


i8  Bssags  of  JElia 

abhorrent  from  his  beloved  studies)  to  while 
away  some  good  hours  of  my  time  in  the  con- 
templation of  indigos,  cottons,  raw  silks,  piece- 
goods,  flowered  or  otherwise.  In  the  first  place 
.  .  .  and  then  it  sends  you  home  with 
such  increased  appetite  to  your  books  .  .  . 
not  to  say,  that  your  outside  sheets,  and  waste 
wrappers  of  foolscap,  do  receive  into  them, 
most  kindly  and  naturally,  the  impression  of 
sonnets,  epigrams,  essays — so  that  the  very 
parings  of  a  counting-house  are,  in  some  sort, 
the  settings  up  of  an  author.  The  enfranchised 
quill,  that  has  plodded  all  the  morning  among 
the  cart-rucks  of  figures  and  ciphers,  frisks  and 
curvets  so  at  its  ease  over  the  flowery-carpet 
ground  of  a  midnight  dissertation.  It  feels  its 
promotion.  ...  So  that  you  see,  upon  the 
whole,  the  literary  dignity  of  Elia  is  very  little, 
if  at  all,  compromised  in  the  condescension. 

Not  that,  in  my  anxious  detail  of  the  many 
commodities  incidental  to  the  life  of  a  public 
ofl&ce,  I  would  be  thought  blind  to  certain 
flaws,  which  a  cunning  carper  might  be  able  to 
pick  in  this  Joseph's  vest.  And  here  I  must 
have  leave,  in  the  fulness  of  my  soul,  to  regret 
the  abolition,  and  doing-away-with  altogether, 
of  those  consolatory  interstices,  and  sprinklings 
of  freedom,  through  the  four  seasons, — the  red- 
letter  days,  now  become,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 


©SforD  In  tbe  IDacation  19 


poses,  dead-letter  days.  There  was  Paul,  and 
Stephen,  and  Barnabas — 

Andrew  and  John,  men  famous  in  old  times 

— we  were  used  to  keep  all  their  days  holy,  as 
long  back  as  I  was  at  school  at  Christ's.  I 
remember  their  effigies,  by  the  same  token,  in 
the  old  Basket  Prayer  Book.  There  hung  Peter 
in  his  uneasy  posture — holy  Bartlemy  in  the 
troublesome  act  of  flaying,  after  the  famous 
Marsyas  by  Spagnoletti.  I  honored  them  all, 
and  could  almost  have  wept  the  defalcation  of 
Iscariot — so  much  did  we  love  to  keep  holy 
memories  sacred  ; — only  methought  I  a  little 
grudged  at  the  coalition  of  the  better  Jude 
with  Simon — clubbing  (as  it  were)  their  sancti- 
ties together,  to  make  up  one  poor  gaudy-day 
between  them — as  an  economy  unworthy  of  the 
dispensation. 

These  were  bright  visitations  in  a  scholar's 
and  a  clerk's  life — "far  off  their  coming 
vShone." — I  was  as  good  as  an  almanac  in  those 
days.  I  could  have  told  you  such  a  saint's  day 
falls  out  next  week,  or  the  week  after.  Per- 
adventure  the  Bpiphany,  by  some  periodical 
infelicity,  would,  once  in  six  years,  merge  in 
the  Sabbath.  Now  am  I  little  better  than  one 
of  the  profane.  Let  me  not  be  thought  to 
arraign  the  wisdom  of  my  civil  superiors,  who 


JB66n>50  ot  JElia 


have  judged  the  further  observation  of  these 
holy  tides  to  be  papistical,  superstitious.  Only 
in  a  custom  of  such  long  standing,  methinks, 
if  their  Holinesses  the  Bishops  had,  in  decency, 
been  first  sounded — but  I  am  wading  out  of  my 
depths.  I  am  not  the  man  to  decide  the  limits 
of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authority — I  am  plain 
Elia — no  Selden,  nor  Archbishop  Usher — 
though  at  present  in  the  thick  of  their  books, 
here  in  the  heart  of  learning,  under  the  shadow 
of  the  mighty  Bodley. 

I  can  here  play  the  gentleman,  enact  the 
student.  To  such  a  one  as  myself,  who  has 
been  defrauded  in  his  young  years  of  the  sweet 
food  of  academic  institution,  nowhere  is  so 
pleasant,  to  while  away  a  few  idle  weeks  at,  as 
one  or  other  of  the  Universities.  Their  vaca- 
tion, too,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  falls  in  so 
pat  with  ours.  Here  I  can  take  my  walks  un- 
molested, and  fancy  myself  of  what  degree  or 
standing  I  please.  I  seem  admitted  ad  eiuideni. 
I  fetch  up  past  opportunities.  I  can  rise  at  the 
chapel-bell,  and  dream  that  it  rings  for  me.  In 
moods  of  humility  I  can  be  a  Sizar,  or  a  Ser- 
vitor. When  the  peacock-  vein  rises,  I  strut  a 
Gentleman  Commoner.  In  graver  moments  I 
proceed  Master  of  Arts.  Indeed  I  do  not  think 
I  am  much  unlike  that  respectable  character. 
I  have  seen  your  dim-eyed  vergers,  and  bed- 


©jforD  In  tbe  li)acation 


makers  in  spectacles,  drop  a  bow  or  a  curtsy,  as 
I  pass,  wisely  mistaking  me  for  something  of 
the  sort.  I  go  about  in  black,  which  favors  the 
notion.  Only  in  Christ  Church  reverend  quad- 
rangle, I  can  be  content  to  pass  for  nothing 
short  of  a  Seraphic  Doctor. 

The  walks  at  these  times  are  so  much  one's 
own, — the  tall  trees  of  Christ's,  the  groves  of 
Magdalen  !  The  halls  deserted,  and  with  open 
doors  inviting  one  to  slip  in  unperceived,  and 
pay  a  devoir  to  some  Founder,  or  noble  or  royal 
Benefactress  (that  should  have  been  ours), 
whose  portrait  seems  to  smile  upon  their  over- 
looked beadsman,  and  to  adopt  me  for  their 
own.  Then,  to  take  a  peep  in  by  the  way  at 
the  butteries,  and  sculleries,  redolent  of 
antique  hospitality ;  the  immense  caves  of 
kitchens,  kitchen  fireplaces,  cordial  recesses ; 
ovens  whose  first  pies  were  baked  four  cen- 
turies ago  ;  and  spits  which  have  cooked  for 
Chaucer  !  Not  the  meanest  minister  among 
the  dishes  but  is  hallowed  to  me  through  his 
imagination,  and  the  Cook  goes  forth  a  Man- 
ciple. 

Antiquity  !  thou  wondrous  charm,  what  art 
thou  ?  that  being  nothing,  art  every  thing ! 
When  thou  cueri,  thou  were  not  antiquity — then 
thou  wert  nothing,  but  hadst  a  remoter  anti- 
quity, as  thou  calledst  it,  to  look  back  to  with 


jEssa^e  of  Blia 


blind  veneration  ;  thou  thyself  being  to  thyself 
flat,  jejune,  nwderfi  !  What  mystery  lurks  in 
this  retroversion?  or  what  half  Januses*  are 
we,  that  cannot  look  forward  with  the  same 
idolatry  with  which  we  forever  revert !  The 
mighty  future  is  nothing,  being  every  thing ! 
the  past  is  every  thing,  being  nothing ! 

What  were  thy  dark  ages  ?  Surely  the  sun 
rose  as  brightly  then  as  now,  and  man  got  him 
to  his  work  in  the  morning.  Why  is  it  we  can 
never  hear  mention  of  them  without  an  accom- 
panying feeling  as  though  a  palpable  obscure 
had  dimmed  the  face  of  things,  and  that  our  an- 
cestors wandered  to  and  fro  groping  ! 

Above  all  thy  rarities,  old  Oxenford,  what  do 
most  arride  and  solace  me  are  thy  repositories 
of  mouldering  learning,  thy  shelves. 

What  a  place  to  be  in  is  an  old  library  !  It 
seems  as  though  all  the  souls  of  all  the  writers 
that  have  bequeathed  their  labors  to  these  Bod- 
leians  were  reposing  here  as  in  some  dormitor}-, 
or  middle  state.  I  do  not  want  to  handle,  to 
profane  the  leaves,  their  winding-sheets.  I 
could  as  soon  dislodge  a  shade.  I  seem  to  in- 
hale learning,  walking  amid  their  foliage  ;  and 
the  odor  of  their  old  moth-scented  coverings  is 
fragrant  as  the  first  bloom  of  those  sciential 
apples  which  grew  amid  the  happy  orchard. 
*  Januses  of  one  face.— Sir  Thomas  Browne. 


©jforD  in  tbe  IDacation  23 


Still  less  have  I  curiosity  to  disturb  the  elder 
repose  of  MSS.  Those  varies  lediones,  so  tempt- 
ing to  the  more  erudite  palates,  do  but  disturb 
and  unsettle  my  faith.  I  am  no  Herculanean 
raker.  The  credit  of  the  three  witnesses  might 
have  slept  unimpeached  for  me.  I  leave  these 
curiosities  to  Porson,  and  to  G.  D. — whom,  by 
the  way,  I  found  busy  as  a  moth  over  some  rot- 
ten archive,  rummaged  out  of  some  seldom-ex- 
plored press,  in  a  nook  at  Oriel.  With  long 
poring,  he  is  grown  almost  into  a  book.  He 
stood  as  passive  as  one  by  the  side  of  the  old 
shelves.  I  longed  to  new  coat  him  in  russia, 
and  assign  him  his  place.  He  might  have  mus- 
..ered  for  a  tall  Scapula. 

D.  is  assiduous  in  his  visits  to  these  seats  of 
learning.  No  inconsiderable  portion  of  his  mod- 
erate fortune,  I  apprehend,  is  consumed  in  jour- 
neys between  them  and  Clifford's-inn — where, 
like  a  dove  on  the  asp's  nest,  he  has  long  taken 
up  his  unconscious  abode,  amid  an  incongruous 
assembly  of  attorneys,  attorneys'  clerks,  appari- 
tors, promoters,  vermin  of  the  law,  among  whom 
he  sits  "  in  calm  and  sinless  peace."  The  fangs 
of  the  law  pierce  him  not — the  winds  of  litiga- 
tion blow  over  his  humble  chambers — the  hard 
sheriflf's  ofi&cer  moves  his  hat  as  he  passes — 
legal  nor  illegal  discourtesy  touches  him — none 
thinks  of  offering  violence  or  injustice  to  him 


24  JB66a^6  of  }£l(a 


— you  would  as  soon  **  strike  an  abstract 
idea." 

D.  has  been  engaged,  he  tells  me,  through  a 
course  of  laborious  years,  in  an  investigation 
into  all  curious  matter  connected  with  the  two 
Universities,  and  has  lately  lit  upon  a  MS.  col- 
lection of  charters,  relative  to  C ,  by  which 

he  hopes  to  settle  some  disputed  points,  particu- 
larly that  long  controversy  between  them  as  to 
priority  of  foundation.  The  ardor  with  which 
he  engages  in  these  liberal  pursuits,  I  am  afraid, 
has   not   met    with   all    the  encouragement   it 

deserved,  either  here,  or  at  C .    Your  caputs 

and  heads  of  colleges  care  less  than  anybody 
else  about  these  questions.  Contented  to  suck 
the  milky  fountains  of  their  Alma  Maters,  with- 
out inquiring  into  the  venerable  gentlewomen's 
years,  they  rather  hold  such  curiosities  to  be  im- 
pertinent— unreverend.  They  have  their  good 
glebe  lands  in  nianu,  and  care  not  much  to  rake 
into  the  title  deeds.  I  gather  at  least  so  much  from 
other  sources,  for  D.  is  not  a  man  to  complain. 

D.  started  like  an  unbroke  heifer,  when  I  in- 
terrupted him.  A  priori  it  was  not  very  prob- 
able that  we  should  have  met  in  Oriel.  But  D, 
would  have  done  the  same  had  I  accosted  him 
on  the  sudden  in  his  own  walks  in  Clifford' s-inn, 
or  in  the  Temple.  In  addition  to  a  provoking 
short-sightedness  (the  effect  of  late  studies  and 


©£for&  In  tbe  Dacatlon  25 


watchings  at  the  midnight  oil),  D.  is  the  most 
absent  of  men.  He  made  a  call  the  other  morn- 
ing at  our  friend  M.'s  in  Bedford  Square,  and, 
finding  nobody  at  home,  was  ushered  into  the 
hall,  where,  asking  for  pen  and  ink,  with 
great  exactitude  of  purpose  he  enters  me  his 
name  in  the  book — which  ordinarily  lies  about 
in  such  places,  to  record  the  failures  of  the  un- 
timely or  unfortunate  ^isitor — and  takes  his 
leave  with  many  ceremonies  and  professions  of 
regret.  Some  two  or  three  hours  after,  his  walk- 
ing destinies  returned  him  into  the  same  neigh- 
borhood again,  and  again  the  quiet  image  of  the 
fireside  circle  at  M.'s — Mrs.  M.  presiding  at  it 
like  a  Queen  Lar,  with  pretty  A.  S.  at  her  side — 
striking  irresistibly  on  his  fancy,  he  makes 
another  call  (forgetting  that  they  were  '*  cer- 
tainly not  to  return  from  the  country  before 
that  day  week  "),  and  disappointed  a  second 
time,  inquires  for  pen  and  paper  as  before  ; 
again  the  book  is  brought,  and  in  the  line  just 
above  that  in  which  he  is  about  to  print  his 
second  name  (his  re-script) — his  first  name 
(scarce  dry)  looks  out  upon  him  like  another 
Sosia,  or  as  if  a  man  should  suddenly  en- 
counter his  own  duplicate!  The  effect  may 
be  conceived.  D.  made  many  a  good  resolu- 
tion against  any  such  lapses  in  future.  I  hope 
he  will  not  keep  them  too  rigorously. 


26  JEsen^e  ot  Blia 


For  with  G.  D. — to  be  absent  from  the  body 
is  sometimes  (not  to  speak  it  profanely)  to  be, 
present  with  the  Lord.  At  the  very  time  when 
personally  encountering  thee,  he  passes  on  with 
no  recognition — or,  being  stopped,  starts  like  a 
thing  surprised — at  that  moment,  reader,  he  is 
on  Mount  Tabor — or  Parnassus — or  co-sphered 
with  Plato — or,  with  Harrington,  framing  "  im- 
mortal commonwealths  " — devising  some  plan 
of  amelioration  to  thy  country,  or  thy  species — 
peradventure  meditating  some  individual  kind- 
ness or  courtesy  to  be  done  to  f/iee  thyself,  the 
returning  consciousness  of  which  made  him  to 
start  so  guiltily  at  thy  obtruded  personal  pres- 
ence. 

D.  is  delightful  anywhere,  but  he  is  at  the 
best  in  such  places  as  these.  He  cares  not  much 
for  Bath.  He  is  out  of  his  element  at  Buxton, 
at  Scarborough,  or  Harrowgate.  The  Cam  and 
the  Isis  are  to  him  * '  better  than  all  the  waters 
of  Damascus."  On  the  Muses'  hill  he  is  happy, 
and  good,  as  one  of  the  Shepherds  on  the 
Delectable  Mountains  ;  and  when  he  goes  about 
with  you  to  show  you  the  halls  and  colleges, 
you  think  you  have  with  you  the  Interpreter  at 
the  House  Beautiful. 


CHRIST'S  HOSPITAL   FIVE-AND-THIRTY 
YKARS  AGO. 


IN  Mr.  Lamb's  *'  Works,"  published  a  year  or 
two  since,  I  find  a  magnificent  eulogy  on 
my  old  school,^  such  as  it  was,  or  now  appears 
to  him  to  have  been,  between  the  years  1782  and 
1789.  It  happens,  very  oddly,  that  my  own 
standing  at  Christ's  was  nearly  corresponding 
with  his  :  and,  with  all  gratitude  to  him  for  his 
enthusiasm  for  the  cloisters,  I  think  he  has 
contrived  to  bring  together  whatever  can  be 
said  in  praise  of  them,  dropping  all  the  other 
side  of  the  argument  most  ingeniously. 

I  remember  L.  at  school ;  and  can  well  recol- 
lect that  he  had  some  peculiar  advantages, 
which  I  and  others  of  his  school-fellows  had 
not.  His  friends  lived  in  town,  and  were  near 
at  hand  ;  and  he  had  the  privilege  of  going  to 
see  them,  almost  as  often  as  he  wished,  through 
some  invidious  distinction  which  was  denied  to 

*  Recollections  of  Christ's  Hospital. 


28  JEssa^s  of  JElia 

us.  The  present  worthy  sub-treasurer  to  the 
Inner  Temple  can  explain  how  that  happened. 
He  had  his  tea  and  hot  rolls  in  a  morning, 
while  we  were  battening  upon  our  quarter-of-a- 
penny-loaf — our  crug — moistened  with  attenu- 
ated small  beer,  in  wooden  piggins,  smacking 
of  the  pitched  leathern  jack  it  was  poured 
from.  Our  Monday's  milk  porridge,  blue  and 
tasteless,  and  the  pease  soup  of  Saturday  coarse 
and  choking,  were  enriched  for  him  with  a  slice 
of  "  extraordinary  bread  and  butter,"  from  the 
hot  loaf  of  the  Temple,  The  Wednesday's  mess 
of  millet,  somewhat  less  repugnant — (we  had 
three  banyan  to  four  meat  days  in  a  week) 
was  endeared  to  his  palate  with  a  lump  of 
double-refined,  and  a  smack  of  ginger  (to  make 
it  go  down  the  more  glibly)  or  the  fragrant  cin- 
namon. In  lieu  of  our  half-pickled  Sundays, 
quite  fresh  boiled  beef  on  Thursdays  (strong  as 
caro  equina)^  with  detestable  marigolds  floating 
in  a  pail  to  poison  the  broth — our  scanty  mut- 
ton scrags  on  Fridays — and  rather  more  savory, 
but  grudging  portions  of  the  same  flesh,  rotten- 
roasted  or  rare,  on  the  Tuesdays  (the  only  dish 
which  excited  our  appetites,  and  disappointed 
our  stomachs  in  almost  equal  proportion) — he 
had  his  hot  plate  of  roast  veal,  or  the  more 
tempting  griskin  (exotics  unknown  to  our  pal- 
ates), cooked  in  the  paternal  kitchen  (a  great 


Cbrisrs  tboepltal  29 

thing),  and  brought  him  daily  by  his  maid  or 
aunt !  I  remember  the  good  old  relative  (in 
whom  love  forbade  pride),  squatting  down  upon 
some  odd  stone  in  a  by-nook  of  the  cloisters, 
disclosing  the  viands  (of  higher  regale  than 
those  cates  which  the  ravens  ministered  to  the 
Tishbite);  and  the  contending  passions  of  L.  at 
the  unfolding.  There  w^as  love  for  the  bringer  ; 
shame  for  the  thing  brought,  and  the  manner 
of  its  bringing ;  sympathy  for  those  who  were 
too  many  to  share  in  it ;  and,  at  top  of  all,  hun- 
ger (eldest,  strongest  of  the  passions  !)  predom- 
inant, breaking  down  the  stony  fences  of  shame, 
and  awkwardness,  and  a  troubled  over-con- 
sciousness. 

I  was  a  poor  friendless  boy.  My  parents  and 
those  who  should  care  for  me,  were  far  away. 
Those  few  acquaintances  of  theirs,  which  they 
coidd  reckon  upon  being  kind  to  me  in  the 
great  city,  after  a  little  forced  notice,  which 
they  had  the  grace  to  take  of  me  on  my  first 
arrival  in  town,  soon  grew  tired  of  my  holiday 
visits.  They  seemed  to  them  to  recur  too 
often,  though  I  thought  them  few  enough  ;  and 
one  after  another  they  all  failed  me,  and  I  felt 
myself  alone  among  six  hundred  playmates. 

O  the  cruelty  of  separating  a  poor  lad  from 
his  early  homestead  !  The  yearnings  which  I 
used  to  have  toward  it  in  those  unfledged  years ! 


30  jSse^^e  ot  Blla 


How,   in  my   dreams,   would  my  native  town 

(far  in  the  west)  come  back,  with  its  church 
and  trees,  and  faces  !  How  I  would  wake  weep- 
ing, and  in  the  anguish  of  my  heart,  exclaim 
upon  sweet  Calne  in  Wiltshire. 

To  this  late  hour  of  my  life,  I  trace  impress- 
ions left  by  the  recollection  of  those  friendless 
holidays.  The  long  warm  days  of  summer  never 
return  but  they  bring  with  them  a  gloom  from 
the  haunting  memory  of  those  ivhole-day  leaves, 
when  by  some  strange  arrangement  we  were 
turned  out,  for  the  livelong  day,  upon  our  own 
hands,  whether  we  had  friends  to  go  to,  or  none. 
I  remember  those  bathing  excursions  to  the 
New  River,  which  L.  recalls  with  such  relish, 
better,  I  think,  than  he  can — for  he  was  a  home- 
seeking  lad,  and  did  not  much  care  for  such 
water-pastimes  : — How  merrily  we  would  sally 
forth  into  the  fields ;  and  strip  under  the  first 
warmth  of  the  sun,  and  wanton  like  young  dace 
in  the  streams  ;  getting  us  appetites  for  noon, 
which  those  of  us  that  were  penniless  (our 
scanty  morning  crust  long  since  exhausted)  had 
not  the  means  of  allaying — while  the  cattle, 
and  the  birds,  and  the  fishes,  were  at  feed  about 
us  and  we  had  nothing  to  satisfy  our  cravings 
— the  very  beaut}^  of  the  day,  and  the  exercise 
of  the  pastime,  and  the  sense  of  liberty,  setting 
a  keener  edge  upon  them  ! — How  faint  and  Ian- 


CbvieVB  IboBpital  31 

guid,  finally,  we  would  return,  toward  night- 
fall, to  our  desired  morsel,  half-rejoicing,  half- 
reluctant,  that  the  hours  of  our  uneasy  liberty 
had  expired ! 

It  was  worse  in  the  days  of  winter,  to  go 
prowling  about  the  streets  objectless — shiver* 
ing  at  cold  windows  of  print-shops,  to  extract  a 
little  amusement ;  or  haply,  as  a  last  resort  in 
the  hopes  of  a  little  novelty,  to  pay  a  fifty-times 
repeated  visit  (where  our  individual  faces  should 
be  as  well  known  to  the  warden  as  those  of  his 
own  charges)  to  the  Lions  in  the  Tower — to 
whose  levee,  by  courtesy  immemorial,  we  had 
a  prescriptive  title  to  admission. 

L.'s  governor  (so  we  called  the  patron  who 
presented  us  to  the  foundation)  lived  in  a  man- 
ner under  his  paternal  roof.  Any  complaint 
which  he  had  to  make  was  sure  of  being  at- 
tended to.  This  was  understood  at  Christ's, 
and  was  an  effectual  screen  to  him  against  the 
severity  of  masters,  or  worse  tyranny  of  the 
monitors.  The  oppressions  of  these  young 
brutes  are  heart-sickening  to  call  to  recollec- 
tion. I  have  been  called  out  of  my  bed,  and 
waked  for  the  purpose^  in  the  coldest  winter 
nights — and  this  not  once,  but  night  after  night 
— in  my  shirt,  to  receive  the  discipline  of  a 
leathern  thong,  with  eleven  other  sufferers,  be- 
cause it  pleased  my  callow  overseer,  when  there 


32  jBsease  ot  Blia 

had  been  any  talking  heard  after  we  were  gone 
to  bed,  to  make  the  last  six  beds  in  the  dormi- 
tory, where  the  youngest  children  of  us  slept, 
answerable  for  an  offence  they  neither  dared  to 
commit,  nor  had  the  power  to  hinder.  The 
same  execrable  tyranny  drove  the  younger  part 
of  us  from  the  fires,  when  our  feet  were  perishing 
with  snow  ;  and,  under  the  cruelest  penalties, 
forbade  the  indulgence  of  a  drink  of  water  when 
we  lay  in  sleepless  summer  nights,  fevered  with 
the  season  and  the  day's  sports. 

There  was  one  H.,  who,  I  learned,  in  after 
days,  was  seen  expiating  some  maturer  offence 
in  the  hulks.  (Do  I  flatter  myself  in  fancying 
that  this  might  be  the  planter  of  that  name, 
who  suffered — at  Nevis,  I  think,  or  St.  Kitts — 
some  few  years  since  ?  My  friend  Tobin  was 
the  benevolent  instrument  of  bringing  him  to 
the  gallows.)  This  petty  Nero  actually  brand- 
ed a  boy,  who  had  offended  him,  with  a  red-hot 
iron  ;  and  nearly  starved  forty  of  us,  with  ex- 
acting contributions,  to  the  one  half  of  our 
bread,  to  pamper  a  young  ass,  which,  incredible 
as  it  may  seem,  with  the  connivance  of  the 
nurse's  daughter  (a  young  flame  of  his)  he  had 
contrived  to  smuggle  in,  and  keep  upon  the 
leads  of  the  ward,  as  they  called  our  dormito- 
ries. This  game  went  on  for  better  than  a 
week,  till  the  foolish  beast,   not  able  to   fare 


Cbrist's  1b06pital 


well  but  he  must  cry  roast  meat — happier  than 
Caligula's  minion,  could  he  have  kept  his  own 
counsel — but,  foolisher,  alas  !  than  any  of  his 
species  in  the  fables — waxing  fat,  and  kicking, 
in  the  fulness  of  bread,  one  unlucky  minute 
would  needs  proclaim  his  good  fortune  to  the 
world  below  ;  and,  laying  out  his  simple  throat, 
blew  such  a  ram's-horn  blast  as  (toppling  down 
the  walls  of  his  own  Jericho)  set  concealmen\ 
any  longer  at  defiance.  The  client  was  dis 
missed,  with  certain  attentions,  to  Smithfield  • 
but  I  never  understood  that  the  patron  under- 
went any  censure  on  the  occasion.  This  was  ii^ 
the  stewardship  of  L.'s  admired  Perry. 

Under  the  same  facile  administration,  car 
L.  have  forgotten  the  cool  impunity  with  which 
the  nurses  used  to  carry  away  openly,  in  open 
platters,  for  their  own  tables,  one  out  of  two 
of  every  hot  joint,  which  the  careful  matron 
had  been  seeing  scrupulously  weighed  out  for 
our  dinners  ?  These  things  were  daily  prac- 
tised in  that  magnificent  apartment,  which  L. 
(grown  connoisseur  since,  we  presume)  praises 
so  highly  for  the  grand  paintings  "  by  Verrio, 
and  others,"  with  which  it  is  "  hung  round  and 
adorned."  But  the  sight  of  sleek,  well-fed 
blue-coat  boys  in  pictures  was,  at  that  time.  I 
believe,  little  consolatory  to  him,  or  us,  the 
li\dng  ones,  who  saw  the  better  part  of  our  pro- 


34  JEssaps  ot  Blia 

visions  carried  away  before  our  faces  by  har- 
pies ;  and  ourselves  reduced  (with  the  Trojan 
in  the  hall  of  Dido) 

To  feed  our  mind  with  idle  portraiture. 

L.  has  recorded  the  repugnance  of  the  school 
to  £-a£-s,  or  the  fat  of  fresh  beef  boiled  ;  and 
sets  it  down  to  some  superstition.  But  these 
unctuous  morsels  are  never  grateful  to  young 
palates  (children  are  universally  fat-haters),  and 
in  strong,  coarse,  boiled  meats,  unsalted,  are  de- 
testable. A  gag-eater  in  our  time  was  equiva- 
lent to  a  ghoul,  and  held  in  equal  detestation. 
suffered  under  the  imputation  : 

'T  was  said 
He  ate  strange  flesh. 

He  was  observed,  after  dinner,  carefully  to 
gather  up  the  remnants  left  at  his  table  (not 
many,  nor  very  choice  fragments  you  may  credit 
me), — and,  in  an  especial  manner,  these  disrep- 
utable morsels,  which  he  would  convey  away, 
and  secretly  stow  in  the  settle  that  stood  at  his 
bedside.  None  saw  when  he  ate  them.  It  was 
rumored  that  he  privately  devoured  them  in  the 
night.  He  was  watched,  but  no  traces  of  such 
midnight  practices  were  discoverable.  Some 
reported  that  on  leave-days  he  had  been  seen 
to  carry  out  of  the  bounds  a  large  blue  check 


Gbrist'6  Ibospital  35 

handkerchief,  full  of  something.  This,  then, 
must  be  the  accursed  thing.  Conjecture  next 
was  at  work  to  imagine  how  he  could  dispose 
of  it.  Some  said  he  sold  it  to  to  the  beggars. 
This  belief  generally  prevailed.  He  went  about 
moping.  None  spake  to  him.  No  one  would 
play  with  him.  He  was  excommunicated  ;  put 
out  of  the  pale  of  the  school.  He  was  too  pow- 
erful a  boy  to  be  beaten,  but  he  underwent 
every  mode  of  that  negative  punishment  w^hich 
is  more  grievous  than  many  stripes.  Still  he 
persevered.  At  length  he  was  observed  by  two 
of  his  school-fellows,  who  were  determined  to 
get  at  the  secret,  and  had  traced  him  one  leave- 
day  for  that  purpose,  to  enter  a  large  worn-out 
building,  such  as  there  exist  specimens  of  in 
Chancery-lane,  which  are  let  out  to  various 
scales  of  pauperism,  with  open  door  and  a  com- 
mon staircase.  After  him  they  silently  slunk 
in  and  followed  by  stealth  up  four  flights,  and 
saw  him  tap  at  a  poor  wicket,  which  was  opened 
by  an  aged  woman,  meanly  clad.  Suspicion 
was  now  ripened  into  certainty.  The  informers 
had  secured  their  victim.  They  had  him  in 
their  toils.  Accusation  was  formally  preferred, 
and  retribution  most  signal  was  looked  for. 
]Mr.  Hathaway,  the  then  steward  (for  this  hap- 
pened a  little  after  my  time),  with  that  patient 
sagacity  which  tempered  all  his  conduct,  deter- 


36  lEem^B  of  :iElia 

mined  to  investigate  the  matter  before  he  pro- 
ceeded to  sentence.  The  result  was,  that  the 
supposed  mendicants,  the  receivers  or  purchas- 
ers of  the  mysterious  scraps,  turned  out  to  be 

the  parents  of ,  an  honest  couple  come  to 

decay — whom  this  seasonable  supply  had,  in  all 
probability,  saved  from  mendicancy  ;  and  that 
this  young  stork,  at  the  expense  of  his  own 
good  name,  had  all  this  while  been  only  feed- 
ing the  old  birds  !  The  governors  on  this 
occasion,  much  to  their  honor,  voted  a  present 

relief  to  the  family  of ,  and  presented  him 

with  a  silver  medal.  The  lesson  which  the 
steward  read  upon  rash  judgment,  on  the  oc- 
casion of  publicly  delivering  the  medal  to , 

I  believe  would  not  be  lost  upon  his  auditory. 
I  had   left  school  then,  but  I  well  remember 

.     He  was  a  tall,  shambling  youth,  with  a 

cast  in  his  eye,  not  at  all  calculated  to  conciliate 
hostile  prejudices.  I  have  since  seen  him  car- 
rying a  baker's  basket.  I  think  I  heard  he  did 
not  do  quite  so  well  by  himself  as  he  had  done 
by  the  old  folks. 

I  was  a  hypochondriac  lad,  and  the  sight  of  a 
boy  in  fetters,  upon  the  day  of  my  first  putting 
on  the  blue  clothes,  was  not  exactly  fitted  to 
assuage  the  natural  terrors  of  initiation.  I  was 
of  tender  years,  barely  turned  of  seven,  and 
had  only  read  of  such  things  in  books  or  seen 


Cbrist's  Ibospttal  37 

them  but  in  dreams.  I  was  told  he  had  run 
away.  This  was  the  punishment  for  the  first 
ofiFence.  As  a  novice  I  was  soon  after  taken  to 
see  the  dungeons.  These  were  little,  square, 
Bedlam  cells,  where  a  boy  could  just  lie  at  his 
length  upon  straw  and  a  blanket — a  mattress,  I 
think,  was  afterwards  substituted — with  a  peep 
of  light,  let  in  askance  from  a  prison  orifice  at 
top,  barely  enough  to  read  by.  Here  the  poor 
boy  was  locked  in  by  himself  all  day,  without 
sight  of  any  but  the  porter,  who  brought  him 
his  bread  and  water — who  might  not  speak  to 
him; — or  of  the  beadle,  who  came  twice  a  week 
to  call  him  out  to  receive  his  periodical  chas- 
tisement, which  was  almost  welcome,  because 
it  separated  him  for  a  brief  interval  from  soli- 
tude ; — and  here  he  was  shut  up  by  himself  of 
flights,  out  of  the  reach  of  any  sound,  to  suffer 
whatever  horrors  the  weak  nerves  and  supersti- 
tion incident  to  his  time  of  life  might  subject 
him  to.*  This  was  the  penalty  for  the  second 
offence.  Wouldst  thou  like,  reader,  to  see  what 
became  of  him  in  the  next  degree  ? 

The  culprit,  who  had  been  a  third  time  an  offen- 

*  One  or  two  instances  of  lunacy,  or  attempted  suicide, 
accordingly,  at  lentrth  convinced  the  governors  of  the 
impolicy  of  this  part  of  the  sentence  ;  and  the  midnight 
torture  to  the  spirits  was  dispensed  with.  This  fancy  of 
dungeons  for  children  was  a  sprout  of  Howard's  brain  ; 
for  which  (saving  the  reverence  due  to  Holy  Paul)  me- 
thinks  I  could  willingly  spit  upon  his  statue. 


38  JEssa^s  of  Blta 

der,  and  whose  expulsion  was  at  this  time  deemed 
irreversible,  was  brought  forth,  as  at  some  sol- 
emn auto  da  fS^  arrayed  in  uncouth  and  most 
appalling  attire — all  trace  of  his  late  "  watchet 
weeds  "  carefully  effaced,  he  was  exposed  in  a 
jacket  resembling  those  which  London  lamp- 
lighters formerly  delighted  in,  with  a  cap  of  the 
same.  The  effect  of  this  divestiture  was  such 
as  the  ingenious  devisors  of  it  could  have  an- 
ticipated. With  his  pale  and  frighted  features, 
it  was  as  if  some  of  those  disfigurements  in 
Dante  had  seized  upon  him.  In  this  disguise- 
ment  he  was  brought  into  the  hall  {L.'s  favorite 
statei^ooni),  where  awaited  him  the  whole  num- 
ber of  his  school-fellows,  w^hose  joint  lessons 
and  sports  he  was  thenceforth  to  share  no 
more  ;  the  awful  presence  of  the  steward,  to  be 
seen  for  the  last  time  ;  of  the  executioner  bea- 
dle, clad  in  his  state  robe  for  the  occasion  ;  and 
of  two  faces  more,  of  direr  import,  because 
never  but  in  these  extremities  visible.  These 
were  governors,  two  of  whom,  by  choice  or 
charter,  were  always  accustomed  to  officiate  at 
these  Ultima  Siipplicia  ;  not  to  mitigate  (so  at 
least  we  understood  it),  but  to  enforce  the  utter- 
most stripe.  Old  Bamber  Gascoigne  and  Peter 
Aubert,  I  remember,  were  colleagues  on  one 
occasion,  when  the  beadle  turning  rather  pale, 
a  glass  of  brandy  was  ordered  to  prepare  him 


Cbrfst's  Ibospital  39 


for  the  mysteries.  The  scourging  was,  after  the 
old  Roman  fashion,  long  and  stately.  The  lie- 
tor  accompanied  the  criminal  quite  round  the 
hall.  We  were  generally  too  faint  with  attend- 
ing to  the  previous  disgusting  circumstances  to 
make  accurate  report  with  our  eyes  of  the  de- 
gree of  corporal  suffering  inflicted.  Report,  of 
course,  gave  out  the  back  knotty  and  livid. 
After  scourging,  he  was  made  over  in  his  Sa7i 
Benito  to  his  friends,  if  he  had  any  (but  com- 
monly such  poor  runagates  were  friendless),  or 
to  his  parish  oflBcer,  who,  to  enhance  the  effect 
of  the  scene,  had  his  station  allotted  to  him  on 
the  outside  of  the  hall  gate. 

These  solemn  pageantries  were  not  played  off 
so  often  as  to  spoil  the  general  mirth  of  the 
community.  We  had  plenty  of  exercise  and 
recreation  after  school  hours ;  and  for  myself,  I 
must  confess  that  I  was  never  happier  than  in 
them.  The  Upper  and  the  Lower  Grammar 
Schools  were  held  in  the  same  room  ;  and 
an  imaginary  line  only  divided  their  bounds. 
Their  character  was  as  different  as  that  of  the 
inhabitants  on  the  two  sides  of  the  Pyrenees. 
The  Rev.  James  Boyer  was  the  Upper  Master  ; 
but  the  Rev.  Matthew  Field  presided  over  that 
portion  of  the  apartment  of  which  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  be  a  member.  We  lived  a  life 
as  careless  as  birds.     We  talked  and  did  just 


40  'Beea^e  of  Blia 


what  we  pleased,  and  nobody  molested  us.  We 
carried  an  accidence,  or  a  grammar,  for  form  ; 
but  for  any  trouble  it  gave  us,  we  might  take 
two  years  in  getting  through  the  verbs  depo- 
nent, and  another  two  in  forgetting  all  that  we 
had  learned  about  them.  There  was  now  and 
then  the  formality  of  saying  a  lesson,  but  if  you 
had  not  learned  it,  a  brush  across  the  shoulders 
(just  enough  to  disturb  a  fly)  was  the  sole  re- 
monstrance. Field  never  used  the  rod  ;  and  in 
truth  he  wielded  the  cane  with  no  great  good- 
will— holding  it  "like  a  dancer."  It  looked  in 
his  hands  rather  like  an  emblem,  than  an  in- 
strument of  authority  ;  and  an  emblem,  too, 
he  was  ashamed  of.  He  was  a  good  easy  man, 
that  did  not  care  to  ruffle  his  own  peace,  nor 
perhaps  set  any  great  consideration  upon  the 
value  of  juvenile  time.  He  came  among  us, 
now  and  then,  but  often  stayed  away  whole 
days  from  us  ;  and  when  he  came,  it  made  no 
difference  to  us — he  had  his  private  room  to  re- 
tire to,  the  short  time  he  stayed,  to  be  out  of 
the  sound  of  our  noise.  Our  mirth  and  uproar 
went  on.  We  had  classics  of  our  own,  without 
being  beholden  to  "insolent  Greece  or  haughty 
Rome,"  that  passed  current  among  us — "  Peter 
Wilkins  " — "  The  Adventures  of  the  Hon.  Cap- 
tain Robert  Boyle  "— "  The  Fortunate  Blue 
Coat  Boy  " — and  the  like.     Or  we  cultivated  a 


Cbrist's  Ibospital  41 

turn  for  mechanic  and  scientific  operations, 
making  little  sun-dials  of  paper,  or  weaving  those 
ingenious  parentheses  called  cat-cradles ;  or 
making  dry  peas  to  dance  upon  the  end  of  a 
tin  pipe  ;  or  studying  the  art  military  over  that 
laudable  game,  "French  and  English,"  and  a 
hundred  other  such  devices  to  pass  away  the 
time — mixing  the  useful  with  the  agreeable — as 
would  have  made  the  souls  of  Rousseau  and 
John  Locke  chuckle  to  have  seen  us. 

Matthew  Field  belonged  to  that  class  of 
modest  divines  who  affect  to  mix  in  equal 
proportion  the  gentleman,  the  scholar,  and  the 
Christia7i ;  but,  I  know  not  how,  the  first  in- 
gredient is  generally  found  to  be  the  predomi- 
nating dose  in  the  composition.  He  was  en- 
gaged in  gay  parties,  or  with  his  courtly  bow  at 
some  episcopal  levee,  when  he  should  have 
been  attending  upon  us.  He  had  for  many 
years  the  classical  charge  of  a  hundred  chil- 
dren, during  the  four  or  five  first  years  of  their 
education  ;  and  his  very  highest  form  seldom 
proceeded  further  than  two  or  three  of  the 
introductory  fables  of  Phaedrus.  How  things 
were  suffered  to  go  on  thus,  I  cannot  guess. 
Boyer,  who  was  the  proper  person  to  have 
remedied  these  abuses,  always  affected,  perhaps 
felt,  a  delicacy  in  interfering  in  a  province  not 
strictly  his  own.      I  have  not  been  without  my 


42  lB63a^6  Of  iBiia. 


suspicions,  that  he  was  not  altogether  dis- 
pleased at  the  contrast  we  presented  to  his  end 
of  the  school.  We  were  a  sort  of  Helots  to  his 
young  Spartans.  He  would  sometimes,  with 
ironic  deference,  send  to  borrow  a  rod  of  the 
Under  Master,  and  then,  with  Sardonic  grin, 
observe  to  one  of  his  upper  boys  "how  neat 
and  fresh  the  twigs  looked."  While  his  pale 
students  were  battering  their  brains  over  Xeno- 
phon  and  Plato,  with  a  silence  as  deep  as  that 
enjoined  by  the  Samite,  we  were  enjoying  our- 
selves at  our  ease  in  our  little  Goshen.  We  saw 
a  little  into  the  secrets  of  his  discipline,  and  the 
prospect  did  but  the  more  reconcile  us  to  our 
lot.  His  thunders  rolled  innocuous  for  us  ;  his 
storms  came  near,  but  never  touched  us  ;  con- 
trary to  Gideon's  miracle,  while  all  around  were 
drenched,  our  fleece  was  dry.*  His  boys  turned 
out  the  better  scholars  ;  we,  I  suspect,  have  the 
advantage  in  temper.  His  pupils  cannot  speak 
of  him  without  something  of  terror  allaying 
their  gratitude ;  the  remembrance  of  Field 
comes  back  with  all  the  soothing  images  of 
indolence,  and  summer  slumbers,  and  work 
like  play,  and  innocent  idleness,  and  Elysian 
exemptions,  and  life  itself  a  "  plajdng  holi- 
day." 

Though  suflSiciently  removed  from  the  juris- 
*  Cowley. 


Cbrist's  Ibospital  43 


diction  of  Boyer,  we  were  near  enough  (as  I 
have  said)  to  understand  a  little  of  his  system. 
We  occasionally  heard  sounds  of  the  Ululan- 
teSy  and  caught  glances  of  Tartarus.  B.  was  a 
rabid  pedant.  His  English  style  was  crampt  to 
barbarism.  His  Easter  anthems  (for  his  duty 
obliged  him  to  those  periodical  flights)  were 
grating  as  scrannel  pipes.-  He  would  laugh, 
ay,  and  heartily,  but  then  it  must  be  at  Flac- 

cus'    quibble   about  Rex or  at   the   tristis 

severitas  in  vtiltu,  or  inspicere  i?i  patinas,  of 
Terence — thin  jests,  which  at  their  first  broach- 
ing could  hardly  have  had  vis  enough  to  move 
a  Roman  muscle.  He  had  two  wigs,  both  pe- 
dantic, but  of  different  omen.  The  one  serene, 
smiling,  fresh  powdered,  betokening  a  mild 
day.  The  other,  an  old,  discolored,  unkempt, 
angry  caxon,  denoting  frequent  and  bloody 
execution.  Woe  to  the  school,  when  he  made 
his  morning  appearance  in  his  passy,  or  pas- 
sionate wig.  No  comet  expounded  surer.  J. 
B.    had   a   heavv   hand.      I   have   known   him 


*  In  this  and  every  thing  B.  was  the  antipodes  of  his 
coadjutor.  WTiile  the  former  was  digging  his  brains  for 
crude  anthems,  worth  a  pig-nut,  F.  would  be  recreating 
his  gentlemanly  fancy  in  the  more  flowery  walks  of  the 
Muses.  A  little  dramatic  effusion  of  his,  under  the  name 
of  Vertumnus  and  Pomona,  is  not  yet  forgotten  by  the 
chroniclers  of  that  sort  of  literature.  It  was  accepted 
by  Garrick,  but  the  town  did  not  give  it  their  sanction. 
B.  used  to  say  of  it,  in  a  wa3-  of  half-compliment,  half- 
irony,  that  it  was  too  classical  for  representation. 


44  JB66a^6  ot  Blia 

double  his  knotty  fist  at  a  poor  trembling  child 
(the  maternal  milk  hardly  dry  upon  its  lips) 
with  a  "Sirrah,  do  3'ou  presume  to  set  your 
wits  at  me?" — Nothing  was  more  common 
than  to  see  him  make  a  headlong  entry  into 
the  school-room,  from  his  inner  recess,  or 
library,  and,  with  turbulent  eye,  singling  out  a 
lad,  roar  out,  "  Od's  my  life,  sirrah,"  (his 
favorite  adjuration)  "I  have  a  great  mind  to 
whip  you," — then,  with  as  sudden  a  retracting 
impulse,  fling  back  into  his  lair — and,  after  a 
cooling  lapse  of  some  minutes  (during  which 
all  but  the  culprit  had  totally  forgotton  the 
context)  drive  headlong  out  again,  piecing  out 
his  imperfect  sense,  as  if  it  had  been  some 
Devil's  Litany,  with  the  expletory  yell, — "  a?id 
/  wii,!,,  ^00  !  " — In  his  gentler  moods,  when  the 
rabidus  furor  was  assuaged,  he  had  resort  to 
an  ingenious  method,  peculiar,  for  what  I  have 
heard,  to  himself,  of  whipping  the  boy,  and 
reading  the  Debates,  at  the  same  time  ;  a  para- 
graph, and  a  lash  between  ;  which  in  those 
times,  when  parliamentary  oratory  was  most  at 
a  height  and  flourishing  in  these  realms,  was 
not  calculated  to  impress  the  patient  with  a 
veneration  for  the  diffuser  graces  of  rhetoric. 

Once,  and  but  once,  the  uplifted  rod  was 
known  to  fall  ineffectual  from  his  hand — when 
droll,  squinting  W. — having  been  caught  put- 


Gbn6rs  1b06pital  45 

ting  the  inside  of  the  master's  desk  to  a  use  for 
which  the  architect  had  clearly  not  designed  it, 
to  justify  himself,  with  great  simplicity  averred 
that  he  did  not  know  that  the  thing  had  been 
forewarned.  This  exquisite  irrecognition  of 
any  law  antecedent  to  the  oral  or  declaratory, 
struck  so  irresistibly  upon  the  fancy  of  all  who 
heard  it  (the  pedagogue  himself  not  excepted) 
— that  remission  was  unavoidable. 

L.  has  given  credit  to  B.'s  great  merits  as  an 
instructor.  Coleridge,  in  his  literar)^  life,  has 
pronounced  a  more  intelligible  and  ample  en- 
conium  on  them.  The  author  of  the  Country 
Spectator  doubts  not  to  compare  him  with  the 
ablest  teachers  of  antiquity.  Perhaps  we  can- 
not dismiss  him  better  than  with  the  pious 
ejaculation  of  C,  when  he  heard  that  his  old 
master  was  on  his  death-bed:  "Poor  J.  B.  ! — 
may  all  his  faults  be  forgiven  ;  and  may  he  be 
wafted  to  bliss  by  little  cherub  boys  all  head 
and  wings,  with  no  bottoms  to  reproach  his 
sublunar)'  infirmities." 

Under  him  were  many  good  and  sound  schol- 
ars bred.  First  Grecian  of  my  time  was  Lance- 
lot Pepys  Stevens,  kindest  of  boys  and  men, 
since  Co-grammar-master  (and  inseparable  com- 
panion) with  Dr.  T e. 

What  an  edifying  spectacle  did  this  brace  of 
friends  present  to  those  who  remembered  the 


46  J£66ai50  of  Blla 

anti-socialities  of  their  predecessors  !  You  never 
met  the  one  by  chance  in  the  street  without  a 
wonder,  which  was  quickly  dissipated  by  the 
almost  immediate  sub-appearance  of  the  other. 
Generally  arm-in-arm,  these  kindly  coadjutors 
lightened  for  each  other  the  toilsome  duties  of 
their  profession,  and  when,  in  advanced  age, 
one  found  it  convenient  to  retire,  the  other  was 
not  long  in  discovering  that  it  suited  him  to 
lay  down  the  fasces  also.  Oh,  it  is  pleasant,  as 
it  is  rare,  to  find  the  same  arm  linked  in  yours 
at  forty,  which  at  thirteen  helped  it  to  turn 
over  the  "  Cicero  De  Amicitia,"  or  some  tale  of 
Antique  Friendship,  which  the  young  heart 
even  then  was  burning  to  anticipate !  Co- 
Grecian  with  S.  was  Th.,  who  has  since  exe- 
cuted with  ability  various  diplomatic  functions 
at  the  Northern  courts.  Th.  was  a  tall,  dark, 
saturnine  youth,  sparing  of  speech,  with  raven 
locks.  Thomas  Fanshaw  Middleton  followed 
him  (now  Bishop  of  Calcutta),  a  scholar  and 
a  gentleman  in  his  teens.  He  has  the  repu- 
tation of  an  excellent  critic  ;  and  is  author 
(besides  the  Country  Spectator)  of  a  Treatise 
on  the  Greek  Article,  against  Sharpe.  M.  is 
said  to  bear  his  mitre  high  in  India,  where  the 
regni  novitas  (I  dare  say)  sufficiently  justifies 
the  bearing.  A  humility  quite  as  primitive  as 
that  of  Jewel  or  Hooker  might  not  be  exactly 


Cbrist's  Ibospltal  47 

fitted  to  impress  the  minds  of  those  Anglo- 
Asiatic  diocesans  with  a  reverence  for  home  in- 
stitutions, and  the  church  which  those  fathers 
watered.  The  manners  of  M.  at  school,  though 
firm,  were  mild  and  unassuming.  Next  to  M. 
(if  not  senior  to  him)  was  Richards,  author  of 
the  Aboriginal  Britons,  the  most  spirited  of 
the  Oxford  prize  poems ;  a  pale,  studious 
Grecian.  Then  followed  poor  S.,  ill-fated  M. ! 
of  these  the  Muse  is  silent. 

Finding  some  of  Edward's  race 
Unhappy,  pass  their  annals  by. 

Come  back  into  memory,  like  as  thou  w^ert  in 
the  day  spring  of  thy  fancies,  with  hope  like  a 
fiery  column  before  thee — the  dark  pillar  not 
yet  turned — Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge — I^ogi- 
cian,  Metaphysician,  Bard !  How  have  I  seen 
the  casual  passer  through  the  Cloisters  stand 
still,  entranced  with  admiration  (while  he 
weighed  the  disproportion  between  the  speech 
and  the  garb  of  the  young  Mirandula),  to  hear 
thee  unfold,  in  thy  deep  intonations,  the  mys- 
teries of  Jamblichus,  or  Plotinus  (for  even  in 
those  years  thou  waxedst  not  pale  at  such 
philosophic  draughts),  or  reciting  Homer  in  his 
Greek,  or  Pindar — while  the  walls  of  the  old 
Gray  Friars  re-echoed  to  the  accents  of  the  iti- 
spired  charity-boy  !     Many  were  the  "  wit-com- 


48  JEssaiPS  of  Blia 


bats"  (to  dally  awhile  with  the  words  of  old 
Fuller)  between  him  and  C.  V.  he  G.,  which 
two  I  behold  like  a  vSpanish  great  galleon,  and 
an  English  man-of-war  ;  Master  Coleridge,  like 
the  former,  was  built  far  higher  in  learning, 
solid,  but  slow  in  his  performances.  C.  V.  Le  G. , 
with  the  English  man-of-war,  lesser  in  bulk  but 
lighter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides,  tack 
about,  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds,  by  the 
quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention. 

Nor  shalt  thou,  their  compeer,  be  quickly  for- 
gotten, Allen,  with  the  cordial  smile  and  still 
more  cordial  laugh,  with  which  thou  w^ere 
wont  to  make  the  old  Cloisters  shake,  in  thy 
cognition  of  some  poignant  jest  of  theirs ;  or 
the  anticipation  of  some  more  material  and,  per- 
adventure,  practical  one  of  thine  own.  Extinct 
are  those  smiles,  with  that  beautiful  counte- 
nance, with  which  (for  thou  wert  the  Nireus 
formosiLS  of  the  school)  in  the  days  of  thy  ma- 
turer  waggery,  thou  didst  disarm  the  wrath  of 
infuriated  town-damsel,  who,  incensed  by  pro- 
voking pinch,  turning  tigress-like  round,  sud- 
denly converted  by  thy  angel-look,  exchanged 

the  half-formed  terrible  "  bl ,"  for  a  gentler 

greeting — "  bless  thy  handsome  face  .'" 

Next  follow  two,  who  ought  to  be  now  alive, 
and  the  friends  of  Elia — the  junior  Le  G. 
and  F.,  who,  impelled,  the  former  by  a  ro\nng 


Gbrl6t'6  Ibospital  49 


temper,  the  latter  by  too  quick  a  sense  of  neg- 
lect— ill  capable  of  enduring  the  slights  poor 
Sizars  are  sometimes  subject  to  in  our  seats  of 
learning — exchanged  their  Alma  Mater  for  the 
camp  :  perishing,  one  by  climate,  and  one  on 
the  plains  of  Salamanca  : — Le  G.,  sanguine, 
volatile,  sweet-natured ;  F. ,  dogged,  faithful, 
anticipative  of  insult,  warm-hearted,  with  some- 
thing of  the  old  Roman  height  about  him. 

Fine,  frank-hearted  Fr.,  the  present  master 
of  Hertford,  with  Marmaduke  T.,  mildest  of 
Missionaries — and  both  my  good  friends  still — 
close  the  catalogue  of  Grecians  in  my  time. 


THE  TWO  RACES  OF  MEN. 

THE  human  species,  according  to  the  best 
theory  I  can  form  of  it,  is  composed  of  two 
distinct  races,  the  vie7i  who  borrow,  and  the  vien 
who  lefid.  To  these  two  original  diversities 
maybe  reduced  all  those  impertinent  classifica- 
tions of  Gothic  and  Celtic  tribes,  white  men, 
black  men,  red  men.  All  the  dwellers  upon 
earth,  "Parthians,  and  Medes,  and  Elamites," 
flock  hither  and  do  naturally  fall  in  with  one 
or  other  of  these  primary  distinctions.  The  in- 
finite superiority  of  the  former,  which  I  choose 
to  designate  as  the  great  race,  is  discernible  in 
their  figure,  port,  and  a  certain  instinctive 
sovereignty.  The  latter  are  bom  degraded. 
"  He  shall  serve  his  brethren."  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  air  of  one  of  this  cast,  lean  and 
suspicious ;  contrasting  with  the  open,  trusting, 
generous  manners  of  the  other. 

Observe  who  have  been  the  greatest  borrow- 
ers of  all  ages — Alcibiades — Falstaflf — Sir  Rich- 


^be  ^wo  IRaces  of  /iRen  51 

ard  Steele — our  late  incomparable  Brinsley — 
what  a  family  likeness  in  all  four ! 

What  a  careless,  even  deportment  hath  your 
borrower  !  what  rosy  gills  !  what  a  beautiful 
reliance  on  Providence  doth  he  manifest, — tak- 
ing no  more  thought  than  lilies !  What  con- 
tempt for  money, — accounting  it  (yours  and 
mine  especially)  no  better  than  dross  !  What 
a  liberal  confounding  of  those  pedantic  distinc- 
tions of  vieuvi  and  tuuni !  or  rather,  what  a  noble 
simplification  of  language  (beyond  Tooke), 
resolving  these  supposed  opposites  into  one 
clear,  intelligible  pronoun  adjective  ! — What 
near  approaches  doth  he  make  to  the  primitive 
coniniuniiy, — to  the  extent  of  one  half  of  the 
principle  at  least. 

He  is  the  true  taxer  who  ''calleth  all  the 
world  up  to  be  taxed"  ;  and  the  distance  is  as 
vast  between  him  and  one  of  us,  as  subsisted 
between  the  Augustan  Majesty  and  the  poorest 
obolary  Jew  that  paid  it  tribute-pittance  at 
Jerusalem  ! — His  exactions,  too,  have  such  a 
cheerful,  voluntary  air !  So  far  removed  from 
your  sour  parochial  or  state  gatherers, — those 
inkhorn  varlets,  who  carry  their  want  of  wel- 
come in  their  faces  !  He  cometh  to  you  with  a 
smile,  and  troubleth  you  with  no  receipt ;  con- 
fining himself  to  no  set  season.  Every  day  is 
his  Candlemas,  or  his  Feast  of  Holy  Michael. 


52  jBesn^e  of  iBiia 

He  applieth  the  lene  tormentum  of  a  pleasant 
look  to  your  purse, — which  to  that  gentle 
warmth  expands  her  silken  leaves,  as  naturally 
as  the  cloak  of  the  traveller,  for  which  sun  and 
wind  contended !  He  is  the  true  Propontic 
which  never  ebbeth !  The  sea  which  taketh 
handsomely  at  each  man's  hand.  In  vain  the 
victim,  whom  he  delighteth  to  honor,  struggles 
with  destiny ;  he  is  in  the  net.  Lend  there- 
fore cheerfully,  O  man  ordained  to  lend — that 
thou  lose  not  in  the  end,  with  thy  worldly 
penny,  the  reversion  promised.  Combine  not 
preposterously  in  thine  own  person  the  penal- 
ties of  Lazarus  and  of  Dives ! — but,  when 
thou  seest  the  proper  authority  coming,  meet 
it  smilingly,  as  it  were  half-way.  Come,  a  hand- 
some sacrifice  !  See  how  light  he  makes  of  it ! 
Strain  not  courtesies  with  a  noble  enemy. 

Reflections  like  the  foregoing  were  forced 
upon  my  mind  by  the  death  of  my  old  friend, 
Ralph  Bigod,  Esq.,  who  parted  this  life  on  Wed- 
nesday evening  ;  dying,  as  he  had  lived,  with- 
out much  trouble.  He  boasted  himself  a 
descendant  from  mighty  ancestors  of  that  name, 
who  heretofore  held  ducal  dignities  in  this 
realm.  In  his  actions  and  sentiments  he  belied 
not  the  stock  to  which  he  pretended.  Early  in 
life  he  found  himself  invested  with  ample 
revenues :  which,  with  that  noble  disinterested- 


Cbe  Zwo  IRacee  ot  /llbeu  53 

ness  which  I  have  noticed  as  inherent  in  men 
of  the  gfeat  race^  he  took  almost  immediate 
measures  entirely  to  dissipate  and  bring  to  noth- 
ing ;  for  there  is  something  revolting  in  the 
idea  of  a  king  holding  a  private  purse  ;  and  the 
thoughts  of  Bigod  were  all  regal.  Thus  fur- 
nished by  the  very  act  of  disfurnishment ;  get- 
ting rid  of  the  cumbersome  luggage  of  riches, 
more  apt  (as  one  sings) 

To  slacken  virtue,  and  abate  her  edge, 

Than  prompt  her  to  do  aught  may  merit  praise. 

he  set  forth,  like  some  Alexander,  upon  his 
great  enterprise,  "  borrowing  and  to  borrow  !  " 
In  his  periegesis,  or  triumphant  progress 
throughout  this  island,  it  has  been  calculated 
that  he  laid  a  tithe  part  of  the  inhabitants  under 
contribution.  I  reject  this  estimate  as  greatly 
exaggerated  ; — but  having  had  the  honor  of  ac- 
companying my  friend  divers  times,  in  his  per- 
ambulations about  this  vast  city,  I  own  I  was 
greatly  struck  at  first  with  the  prodigious 
number  of  faces  we  met,  who  claimed  a  sort  of 
respectful  acquaintance  with  us.  He  was  one 
day  so  obliging  as  to  explain  the  phenomenon. 
It  seems,  these  were  his  tributaries  ;  feeders  of 
his  exchequer  ;  gentlemen,  his  good  friends  (as 
he  was  pleased  to  express  himself),  to  whom  he 
had   occasionallv   been   beholden    for  a  loan. 


54  Been^e  ot  Blla 


Their  multitudes  did  no  way  disconcert  him. 
He  rather  took  a  pride  in  numbering  them ; 
and,  with  Comus,  seemed  pleased  to  be  "stocked 
with  so  fair  a  herd." 

With  such  sources,  it  was  a  wonder  how  he 
contrived  to  keep  his  treasury  always  empty. 
He  did  it  by  force  of  an  aphorism,  which  he  had 
often  in  his  mouth,  that  "money  kept  longer 
than  three  days'  stinks."  So  he  made  use  of  it 
while  it  was  fresh.  A  good  part  he  drank  away, 
(for  he  was  an  excellent  toss-pot) :  some  he 
gave  away,  the  rest  he  threw  away,  literally 
tossing  and  hurling  it  violently  from  him — as 
boys  do  burrs,  or  as  if  it  had  been  infectious, — 
into  ponds,  or  ditches,  or  deep  holes,  inscrutable 
cavities  of  the  earth;  or  he  would  bury  it 
(where  he  would  never  seek  it  again)  by  a 
river's  side  under  some  bank,  which  (he  would 
facetiously  observe)  paid  no  interest — but  out 
away  from  him  it  must  go  peremptorily,  as 
Hagar's  offspring  into  the  wilderness,  while  it 
was  sweet.  He  never  missed  it.  The  streams 
were  perennial  which  fed  his  fisc.  When  new 
supplies  became  necessary,  the  first  person  that 
had  the  felicity  to  fall  in  with  him,  friend  or 
stranger,  was  sure  to  contribute  to  the  defi- 
ciency. For  Bigod  had  an  undeniable  way  with 
him.  He  had  a  cheerfid,  open  exterior,  a  quick 
jovial  eye,  a  bald  forehead,  just  touched  with 


Zbc  Zxoo  IRaces  of  /iRen  55 

gray  {cana  fides).  He  anticipated  no  excuse, 
and  found  none.  And,  waiving  for  a  while  my 
theory  as  to  the  great  race,  I  would  put  it  to  the 
most  untheorizing  reader,  who  may  at  times 
have  disposable  coin  in  his  pocket,  whether  it 
is  not  more  repugnant  to  the  kindliness  of  his 
nature  to  refuse  such  a  one  as  I  am  describing, 
than  to  say  no  to  a  poor  petitionary  rogue  (your 
bastard  borrower),  who,  by  his  mumping  vis- 
nomy,  tells  you,  that  he  expects  nothing  better  ; 
and,  therefore,  whose  preconceived  notions  and 
expectations  you  do  in  reality  so  much  less 
shock  in  the  refusal. 

When  I  think  of  this  man,  his  fiery  glow  of 
heart ;  his  swell  of  feeling  ;  how^  magnificent, 
how  ideal  he  was  ;  how  great  at  the  midnight 
hour ;  and  when  I  compare  with  him  the  com- 
panions with  whom  I  have  associated  since,  I 
grudge  the  saving  of  a  few  idle  ducats,  and 
think  that  I  am  fallen  into  the  society  of 
lenders,  and  little  men. 

To  one  like  Elia,  w^hose  treasures  are  rather 
cased  in  leather  covers  than  closed  in  iron 
coffers,  there  is  a  class  of  alienators  more  for- 
midable than  that  which  I  have  touched  upon  ; 
I  mean  your  borrowers  of  books — those  mutila- 
tors of  collections,  spoilers  of  the  symmetry  of 
shelves,  and  creators  of  odd  volumes.  There  is 
Comberbatch,  matchless  in  his  depredations  ! 


56  Bssai^s  ot  Blia 

That  foul  gap  in  the  bottom  shelf  facing  you, 
like  a  great  eye-tooth  knocked  out — (you  are 
now  with  me  in  my  little  back  study  in  Blooms- 
bury,  reader ! — with  the  huge  vSwitzer-like 
tomes  on  each  side  (like  the  Guild-hall  giants, 
in  their  reformed  posture,  guardiant  of  noth- 
ing) once  held  the  tallest  of  my  folios,  Opera 
Bonaventurcs^  choice  and  massy  divinity,  to 
which  its  two  supporters  (school  divinity  also, 
but  of  a  lesser  calibre — Bellarmine,  and  Holy 
Thomas)  showed  but  as  dwarfs — itself  an  As- 
capart ! — that  Comberbatch  abstracted  upon  the 
faith  of  a  theory  he  holds,  which  is  more  easy, 
I  confess,  for  me  to  suffer  by  than  to  refute, 
namely,  that  ''the  title  to  property  in  a  book 
(my  Bonaventure,  for  instance)  is  in  exact  ratio 
to  the  claimant's  powers  of  understanding  and 
appreciating  the  same."  Should  he  go  on  act- 
ing upon  this  theory,  which  of  our  shelves  is 
safe? 

The  slight  vacuum  in  the  left-hand  case — 
two  shelves  from  the  ceiling — scarcely  distin- 
guishable but  by  the  quick  e3'e  of  a  loser — was 
whilom  the  commodious  resting-place  of  Brown 
on  Urn  Burial.  C.  will  hardly  allege  that  he 
knows  more  about  that  treatise  than  I  do,  who 
introduced  it  to  him,  and  was,  indeed,  the  first 
(of  the  modems)  to  discover  its  beauties — but 
so  have  I  known  a  foolish  lover  to  praise  his 


^be  Zvoo  IRaces  of  /nben  57 

mistress  in  the  presence  of  a  rival  more  qual- 
ified to  carr>'  her  ofif  than  himself.  Just  below, 
Dodsley's  dramas  want  their  fourth  volume, 
where  Vittoria  Corombona  is.  The  remaining 
nine  are  as  distasteful  as  Priam's  refuse  sons, 
when  the  Fates  borrowed  Hector,  Here  stood 
the  ' '  Anatomy  of  Melancholy, ' '  in  sober  state. 
There  loitered  the  "  Complete  Angler  ";  quiet  as 
in  life,  by  some  stream  side.  In  yonder  nook, 
"John  Buncle,"  a  widower- volume,  with  "  eyes 
closed,"  mourns  his  ravished  mate. 

One  justice  I  must  do  my  friend,  that  if  he 
sometimes,  like  the  sea,  sweeps  away  a  trea- 
sure, at  another  time,  sea-like,  he  throws  up  as 
rich  an  equivalent  to  match  it.  I  have  a  small 
under-coUection  of  this  nature  (my  friend's 
gatherings  in  his  various  calls)  picked  up,  he 
has  forgotten  at  what  odd  places,  and  deposit- 
ed with  as  little  memory  at  mine.  I  take  in 
these  orphans,  the  twice  deserted.  These 
proselytes  of  the  gate  are  welcome  as  the  true 
Hebrews.  There  they  stand  in  conjunction  ; 
natives,  and  naturalized.  The  latter  seem  as 
little  disposed  to  inquire  out  their  true  lineage 
as  I  am.  I  charge  no  warehouse-room  for 
these  deodands,  nor  shall  ever  put  myself  to 
the  ungentlemanly  trouble  of  advertising  a  sale 
of  them  to  pay  expenses. 

To  lose  a  volume  to  C.  carries  some  sense  and 


58  :600ag6  ot  JElfa 

meaning  in  it.  You  are  sure  that  he  will  make 
one  hearty  meal  of  your  viands,  if  he  can  give 
no  account  of  the  platter  after  it.  But  what 
moved  thee,  wayward,  spiteful  K.,  to  be  so  im- 
portunate to  carry  off  with  thee,  in  spite  of 
tears  and  adjurations  to  thee  to  forbear,  the 
"Letters"  of  that  princely  woman,  the  thrice 
noble  Margaret  Newcastle  ? — knowing  at  the 
time,  and  knowing  that  I  knew  also,  thou  most 
assuredly  wouldst  never  turn  over  one  leaf  of 
the  illustrious  folio  : — what  but  the  mere  spirit 
of  contradiction,  and  childish  love  of  getting 
the  better  of  thy  friend  ?  Then,  worst  cut  of 
all !  to  transport  it  with  thee  to  the  Gallican 
land — 

Unworthy  land  to  harbor  such  a  sweetness, 
A  virtue  in  which  all  ennobling  thoughts  dwelt, 
Pure  thoughts,  kind  thoughts,  high  thoughts,  her  sex's 
wonder  ! 

— hadst  thou  not  thy  play-books,  and  books 
of  jests  and  fancies,  about  thee,  to  keep  thee 
merry,  even  as  thou  keepestall  companies  with 
thy  quips  and  mirthful  tales?  Child  of  the 
Green-room,  it  was  unkindly  done  of  thee. 
Thy  wife,  too,  that  part-French,  better-part 
Englishwoman  ! — that  she  could  fix  upon  no 
other  treatise  to  bear  away,  in  kindly  token  of 
remembering  us,  than  the  works  of  Fulke 
Greville,    Lord   Brook — of  which   no    French- 


trbc  Zvoo  IRaces  of  I^cn  59 


man,  nor  woman  of  France,  Italy,  or  England, 
was  ever  by  nature  constituted  to  comprehend 
a  title  !  IVas  there  not  Zimmerman  on  Soli- 
tude ? 

Reader,  if  haply  thou  art  blessed  with  a  mod- 
erate collection,  be  shy  of  showing  it ;  or  if  thy 
heart  overfloweth  to  lend  them,  lend  thy  books ; 
but  let  it  be  to  such  a  one  as  S.  T.  C. — he  will 
return  them  (generally  anticipating  the  time 
appointed)  with  usury ;  enriched  with  annota- 
tions tripling  their  value.  I  have  had  experi- 
ence. Many  are  these  precious  MSS.  of  his — 
(in  matter  oftentimes,  and  almost  in  quantity 
not  unfrequently,  vying  with  the  originals)  in 
no  very  clerkly  hand — legible  in  my  Daniel ;  in 
old  Burton  ;  in  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ;  and  those 
abstruser  cogitations  of  the  Greville,  now,  alas  ! 
wandering  in  Pagan  lands.  I  counsel  thee, 
shut  not  thy  heart,  nor  thy  library,  against  S. 
T.  C. 


NEW  YEAR'S  EVE. 

EVERY  man  hath  two  birthdays  :  two  days, 
at  least,  in  every  year,  which  set  him 
upon  revolving  the  lapse  of  time  as  it  affects 
his  mortal  duration.  The  one  is  that  which  in 
an  especial  manner  he  termeth  his.  In  the 
gradual  desuetude  of  old  observances,  this 
custom  of  solemnizing  our  proper  birthday 
hath  nearly  passed  away,  or  is  left  to  children, 
who  reflect  nothing  at  all  about  the  matter,  nor 
understand  any  thing  in  it  beyond  cake  and 
orange.  But  the  birth  of  a  New  Year  is  of  an 
interest  too  wide  to  be  pretermitted  by  king  or 
cobbler.  No  one  ever  regarded  the  first  of  Jan- 
uary with  indifference.  It  is  that  from  which 
all  date  their  time,  and  count  upon  what  is  left. 
It  is  the  nati\dty  of  our  common  Adam. 

Of  all  sound  of  all  bells — (bells,  the  music 
nighest  bordering  upon  heaven) — most  solemn 
and  touching  is  the  peal  which  rings  out  the 
Old  Year.  I  never  hear  it  without  a  gathering- 
up  of  my  mind  to  a  concentration  of  all  the 
images  that  have  been  diffused  over  the  past 


flew  l^ear'0  iBvc 


twelve-month  ;  all  I  have  done  or  suffered,  per- 
formed or  neglected — in  that  regretted  time.  I 
begin  to  know  its  worth,  as  when  a  person 
dies.  It  takes  a  personal  color  ;  nor  was  it  a 
poetical  flight  in  a  contemporary,  when  he 
exclaimed, 

I  saw  the  skirts  of  a  departing  Year. 

It  is  no  more  than  what  in  sober  sadness 
every  one  of  us  seems  to  be  conscious  of,  in 
that  awful  leave-taking.  I  am  sure  I  felt  it, 
and  all  felt  it  with  me,  last  night ;  though  some 
of  my  companions  affected  rather  to  manifest 
an  exhilaration  at  the  birth  of  the  coming  year, 
than  any  very  tender  regrets  for  the  decease  of 
its  predecessor.     But  I  am  none  of  those  who — 

Welcome  the  coming,  speed  the  parting  guest. 

I  am  naturally,  beforehand,  shy  of  novelties  ; 
new  books,  new  faces,  new  years — from  some 
mental  twist  which  makes  it  difficult  in  me  to 
face  the  prospective.  I  have  almost  ceased  to 
hope  ;  and  am  sanguine  only  in  the  prospects 
of  other  (former)  years.  I  plunge  into  foregone 
visions  and  conclusions.  I  encounter  pellmell 
with  past  disappointments.  I  am  armor-proof 
against  old  discouragements.  I  forgive,  or 
overcome  in  fancy,  old  adversaries.  1  play 
over  again  /or  love,  as  the  gamesters  phrase  it, 


62  Bssa^s  of  Blia 

games,  for  which  I  once  paid  so  dear.  X  would 
scarce  now  have  any  of  those  untoward  acci- 
dents and  events  of  my  life  reversed.  I  would 
no  more  alter  them  than  the  incidents  of  some 
well-contrived  novel.  Methinks  it  is  better  that 
I  should  have  pined  away  seven  of  my  golden- 
est  years,  when  I  was  thrall  to  the  fair  hair,  and 
fairer  eyes,  of  Alice  W n,  than  that  so  pas- 
sionate a  love-adventure  should  be  lost.  It  was 
better  that  our  family  should  have  missed  that 
legacy,  which  old  Dorrell  cheated  us  of,  than 
that  I  should  have  at  this  moment  two  thousand 
pounds  in  banco,  and  be  without  the  idea  of 
that  specious  old  rogue. 

In  a  degree  beneath  manhood,  it  is  my  in- 
firmity to  look  back  upon  those  early  days.  Do 
I  advance  a  paradox,  when  I  say,  that,  skipping 
over  the  intervention  of  forty  years,  a  man  may 
have  leave  to  love  himself,  without  the  imputa- 
tion of  self-love  ? 

If  I  know  aught  of  myself,  no  one  whose 
mind  is  introspective — and  mine  is  painfully 
so — can  have  a  less  respect  for  his  present 
identity,  than  I  have  for  the  man  Elia.  I  know 
him  to  be  light,  and  vain,  and  humorsome  ;  a 
notorious  .  .  .  ;  addicted  to  ...  ;  averse 
from  counsel,  neither  taking  it  nor  offering 
it ; —  .  .  .  besides  ;  a  stammering  buffoon  ; 
what  you  will ;  lay  it  on,  and  spare  not ;  I  sub- 


"Mew  gear's  Mve  63 

scribe  to  it  all,  and  much  more  than  thou  canst 
be  willing  to  lay  at  his  door — but  for  the  child 
Elia,  that  "other  me,"  there  in  the  background 
— I  must  take  leave  to  cherish  the  remembrance 
of  that  young  master — with  as  little  reference, 
I  protest,  to  this  stupid  changeling  of  five-and- 
forty,  as  if  it  had  been  a  child  of  some  other 
house,  and  not  of  my  parents.  I  can  bry  over 
its  patient  smallpox  at  five,  and  rougher  medic- 
aments. I  can  lay  its  poor  fevered  head  upon 
the  sick  pillow  at  Christ's,  and  wake  with  it  in 
surprise  at  the  gentle  posture  of  maternal  ten- 
derness hanging  over  it,  that  unknown  had 
watched  its  sleep.  I  know  how  it  shrank  from 
any  the  least  color  of  falsehood.  God  help 
thee,  Elia,  how  art  thou  changed  !  Thou  art 
sophisticated.  I  know  how  honest,  how  coura- 
geous (for  a  weakling)  it  was — how  religious, 
how  imaginative,  how  hopeful  !  From  what 
have  I  not  fallen,  if  the  child  I  remember  was 
indeed  myself, —  and  not  some  dissembling 
guardian,  presenting  a  false  identity,  to  give 
the  rule  to  my  unpractised  steps,  and  regulate 
the  tone  of  my  moral  being  ! 

That  I  am  fond  of  indulging,  beyond  a  hope 
of  sympathy,  in  such  retrospection,  may  be  the 
symptom  of  some  sickly  idiosyncrasy.  Or  is  it 
owing  to  another  cause  :  simply,  that  being 
without  wife  or  familv,  I  have  not  learned  to 


64  lEssa^s  of  Elfa 

project  myself  enough  out  of  myself;  and 
having  no  offspring  of  my  own  to  dally  with,  I 
turn  back  upon  memory,  and  adopt  my  own 
early  idea,  as  my  heir  and  favorite  ?  If  these 
speculations  seem  fantastical  to  thee,  reader — 
(a  busy  man,  perchance),  if  I  tread  out  of  the 
way  of  thy  sympathy,  and  am  singularly  con- 
ceited only,  I  retire,  impenetrable  to  ridicule, 
under  the  phantom-cloud  of  Elia. 

The  elders,  with  whom  I  was  brought  up, 
were  of  a  character  not  likely  to  let  slip  the 
sacred  observance  of  any  old  institution  ;  and 
the  ringing  out  of  the  Old  Year  was  kept  by 
them  with  circumstances  of  peculiar  ceremony. 
In  those  days  the  sound  of  those  midnight 
chimes,  though  it  seemed  to  raise  hilarity  in  all 
around  me,  never  failed  to  bring  a  train  of  pen- 
sive imagery  into  my  fancy.  Yet  I  then  scarce 
conceived  what  it  meant,  or  thought  of  it  as  a 
reckoning  that  concerned  me.  Not  childhood 
alone,  but  the  young  man  till  thirty,  never 
feels  practically  that  he  is  mortal.  He  knows 
it  indeed,  and,  if  need  were,  he  could  preach  a 
homily  on  the  fragility  of  life  ;  but  he  brings  it 
not  home  to  himself,  any  more  than  in  a  hot 
June  we  can  appropriate  to  our  imagination  the 
freezing  days  of  December.  But  now,  shall  I 
confess  a  truth  ? — I  feel  these  audits  but  too 
powerfully.      I  begin  to  count  the  probabilities 


Bew  l^ear'0  Bvc  65 

of  my  duration,  and  to  grudge  at  the  expendi- 
ture of  moments  and  shortest  periods,  like 
misers'  farthings.  In  proportion  as  the  years 
both  lessen  and  shorten,  I  set  more  count  upon 
their  periods,  and  -would  fain  lay  my  ineffectual 
finger  upon  the  spoke  of  the  great  wheel.  I 
am  not  content  to  pass  away  "  like  a  weavers' 
shuttle."  Those  metaphors  solace  me  not,  nor 
sweeten  the  unpalatable  draught  of  mortality. 
I  care  not  to  be  carried  with  the  tide,  that 
smoothly  bears  human  life  to  eternity  ;  and  re- 
luct at  the  inevitable  course  of  destiny.  I  am 
in  love  with  this  green  earth  ;  the  face  of  town 
and  countr)^  ;  the  unspeakable  rural  solitudes, 
and  the  sweet  security  of  streets.  I  would  set 
up  my  tabernacle  here.  I  am  content  to  stand 
still  at  the  age  to  which  I  am  arrived  ;  I,  and 
my  friends  ;  to  be  no  younger,  no  richer,  no 
handsomer.  I  do  not  want  to  be  weaned  by 
age  ;  or  drop,  like  mellow  fruit,  as  they  say, 
into  the  grave.  Any  alteration,  on  this  earth 
of  mine,  in  diet  or  in  lodging,  puzzles  and  dis- 
composes me.  IVIy  household-gods  plant  a  ter- 
rible fixed  foot,  and  are  not  rooted  up  without 
blood.  They  do  not  willingly  seek  Lavinian 
shores.     A  new  state  of  being  staggers  me. 

Sun,  and  sky,  and  breeze,  and  solitary  walks, 
and  summer  holidays,  and  the  greenness  of 
fields,  and  the  delicious  juices  of  meats   and 


66  jEseaiss  ot  Ella 

fishes,  and  society,  and  the  cheerful  glass,  and 
candlelight,  and  fireside  conversations,  and  in- 
nocent vanities,  and  jests,  and  irony  itself ^do 
these  things  go  out  with  life  ? 

Can  a  ghost  laugh,  or  shake  his  gaunt  sides, 
when  you  are  pleasant  with  him  ? 

And  you,  my  midnight  darlings,  my  Folios  ! 
must  I  part  wnth  the  intense  delight  of  having 
you  (huge  armfuls)  in  my  embraces?  Must 
knowledge  come  to  me,  if  it  come  at  all,  by 
some  awkward  experiment  of  intuition,  and  no 
longer  by  this  familiar  process  of  reading  ? 

Shall  I  enjoy  friendships  there,  wanting  the 
smiling  indications  which  point  me  to  them 
here, — the  recognizable  face — the  "sweet  assur- 
ance of  a  look"  ? 

In  winter  this  intolerable  disinclination  to 
dying — to  give  it  its  mildest  name — does  more 
especially  haunt  and  beset  me.  In  a  genial  Au- 
gust noon,  beneath  a  sweltering  sky,  death  is 
almost  problematic.  At  those  times  do  such 
poor  snakes  as  myself  enjoy  an  immortality. 
Then  we  expand  and  bourgeon.  Then  we  are 
as  strong  again,  as  valiant  again,  as  wise  again, 
and  a  great  deal  taller.  The  blast  that  nips  and 
shrinks  me,  puts  me  in  thoughts  of  death.  All 
things  allied  to  the  insubstantial,  wait  upon  that 
master-feeling  ;  cold,  numbness,  dreams,  per- 
plexity ;  moonlight  itself,  with  its  shadowy  and 


Haew  l!?ear'0  iBvc  67 

spectral  appearances, — that  cold  ghost  of  the 
sun,  or  Phoebus'  sickly  sister,  like  that  innu- 
tritious  one  denounced  in  the  Canticles : — I  am 
none  of  her  minions — I  hold  with  the  Persian. 

Whatsoever  thwarts,  or  puts  me  out  of  my  way, 
brings  death  into  my  mind.  All  partial  evils, 
like  humors,  run  into  that  capital  plague-sore. 
<  have  heard  some  profess  an  indifference  to 
Ufe.  Such  hail  the  end  of  their  existence  as  a 
port  of  refuge ;  and  speak  of  the  grave  as  of 
some  soft  arms,  in  which  they  may  slumber  as 
on  a  pillow.  Some  have  wooed  death — but  out 
upon  thee,  I  sa}- ,  thou  foul,  ugly  phantom  !  I 
detest,  abhor,  execrate,  and  (with  Friar  John) 
give  thee  to  sixscore  thousand  devils  as  in  no 
instance  to  be  excused  or  tolerated,  but  shunned 
as  an  universal  viper ;  to  be  branded,  proscribed, 
and  spoken  evil  of !  In  no  way  can  I  be  brought 
to  digest  thee,  thou  thin,  melancholy  Privation, 
or  more  frightful  and  confounding  Positive  ! 

Those  antidotes,  prescribed  against  the  fear 
of  thee,  are  altogether  frigid  and  insulting,  like 
thyself.  For  what  satisfaction  hath  a  man,  that 
he  shall  "  lie  down  with  kings  and  emperors  in 
death,"  who  in  his  lifetime  never  greatly  coveted 
the  society  of  such  bedfellows? — or,  forsooth, 
that  "so  shall  the  fairest  face  appear  "  ? — why, 

to  comfort  me,  must  Alice  W n  be  a  goblin? 

More  than  all,  I  conceive  disgust  at  those  im- 


68  lB6Qa^6  Of  Blia 

pertinent  and  misbecoming  familiarities,  in- 
scribed upon  your  ordinary  tombstones.  Every 
dead  man  must  take  upon  himself  to  be  lectur- 
ing me  with  his  odious  truism,  that  "Such  as 
he  now  is  I  must  shortly  be."  Not  so  shortly, 
friend,  perhaps,  as  thou  imaginest.  In  the 
meantime  I  am  alive.  I  move  about.  I  am 
worth  twenty  of  thee.  Know  thy  betters  !  Thy 
New  Years'  days  are  past.  I  survive,  a  jolly 
candidate  for  1821.  Another  cup  of  wine — and 
while  that  turncoat  bell,  that  just  now  mourn- 
fully chanted  the  obsequies  of  1820  departed, 
with  changed  notes  lustily  rings  in  a  successor, 
let  us  attune  to  its  peal  the  song  made  on  a  like 
occasion  by  hearty,  cheerful  Mr.  Cotton. 

Tun  NEW  YEAR. 

Hark,  the  cock  crows,  and  yon  bright  star 
Tells  us,  the  day  himself  s  not  far  ; 
And  see  where,  breaking  from  the  night, 
He  gilds  the  western  hills  with  light. 
With  him  old  Janus  doth  appear, 
Peeping  into  the  future  year. 
With  such  a  look  as  seems  to  say, 
The  prospect  is  not  good  that  way. 
Thus  do  we  rise  ill  sights  to  see, 
And  'gainst  ourselves  to  prophesy  ; 
When  the  prophetic  fear  of  things 
A  more  tormenting  mischief  brings, 
More  full  of  soul-tormenting  gall 
Than  direst  mischiefs  can  befall. 
But  stay  !  but  stay  !  methinks  my  sight 


1FICVV  l^ear's  Bve  69 

Better  inform 'd  by  clearer  light, 

Discerns  sereneness  in  that  brow, 

That  all  contracted  seem'd  but  now. 

His  revers'd  face  may  show  distaste, 

And  frown  upon  the  ills  are  past ; 

But  that  which  this  way  looks  is  clear, 

And  smiles  upon  the  Xew-bom  Year. 

He  looks  too  from  a  place  so  high, 

The  Year  lies  open  to  his  eye  ; 

And  all  the  moments  open  are 

To  the  exact  discoverer. 

Yet  more  and  more  he  smiles  upon 

The  happy  revolution. 

Why  should  we  then  suspect  or  fear 

The  influences  of  a  year  ? 

So  smiles  upon  us  the  first  mom, 

And  speaks  us  good  so  soon  as  bom. 

Plague  on  't !  the  last  was  ill  enough, 

This  cannot  but  make  better  proof; 

Or,  at  the  worst,  as  we  brush 'd  through 

The  last,  why  so  we  may  this  too  ; 

And  then  the  next  in  reason  shou'd 

Be  superexcellently  good  : 

For  the  worst  ills  (we  daily  see) 

Have  no  more  perpetuity 

Than  the  best  fortunes  that  do  fall ; 

Which  also  bring  us  wherewithal 

I^onger  their  being  to  support, 

Than  those  do  of  the  other  sort ; 

And  who  has  one  good  j'ear  in  three, 

And  yet  repines  at  destiny, 

Appears  ungrateful  in  the  case. 

And  merits  not  the  good  he  has. 

Then  let  us  welcome  the  New  Guest, 

With  lusty  brimmers  of  the  best ; 

Mirth  always  should  Good  Fortune  meet, 


70  jEssa^s  of  BUa 

And  renders  e'en  Disaster  sweet ; 
And  though  the  Princess  turn  her  back. 
Let  us  but  line  ourselves  with  sack, 
We  better  shall  by  far  hold  out. 
Till  the  next  Year  she  face  about. 

How  say  you,  reader  ?  Do  not  these  verses 
smack  of  the  rough  magnanimity  of  the  old 
English  vein  ?  Do  they  not  fortify  like  a  cor- 
dial ,  enlarging  the  heart,  and  productive  of 
sweet  blood  and  generous  spirits  in  the  concoc- 
tion !  Where  be  those  puling  fears  of  death, 
just  now  expressed  or  affected  ?  Passed  like  a 
cloud — absorbed  in  the  purging  sunlight  of  clear 
poetry — clean  washed  away  by  a  wave  of  gen- 
uine Helicon,  your  only  Spa  for  these  hypo- 
chonderies.  And  now  another  cup  of  the  gen- 
erous !  and  a  merry  New  Year,  and  many  of 
them  to  you  all,  my  masters  ! 


MRS.    BATTLE'S    OPINIONS    ON    WHIST. 


"  A  CLEAR  fire,  a  clean  hearth,  and  the  rigor 
l\  of  the  game."  This  was  the  celebrated 
wish  of  old  Sarah  Battle  (now  with  God),  who, 
next  to  her  devotions,  loved  a  good  game  of 
whist.  She  was  none  of  your  lukewarm 
gamesters,  your  half-and-half  players,  who 
have  no  objection  to  take  a  hand,  if  you  want 
one  to  make  up  a  rubber  ;  who  affirm  that  they 
have  no  pleasure  in  winning  ;  that  they  like  to 
win  one  game  and  lose  another  ;  that  they  can 
while  away  an  hour  very  agreeably  at  a  card- 
table,  but  are  indifferent  whether  they  play  or 
no  ;  and  will  desire  an  adversan,-,  who  has 
slipped  a  wrong  card,  to  take  it  up  and  play 
another.  These  insufferable  trifles  are  the 
curse  of  a  table.  One  of  these  flies  will  spoil  a 
whole  pot.  Of  such  it  may  be  said  that  they 
do  not  play  at  cards,  but  only  play  at  playing 
at  them. 

Sarah  Battle  was  none  of  that  breed.     She 
detested  them,  as  I  do,  from  her  heart  and  soul, 


72  JBeea^e  ot  JElla 


and  would  not,  save  upon  a  striking  emergency, 
willingly  seat  herself  at  the  same  table  with 
them.  She  loved  a  thorough-paced  partner,  a 
determined  enemy.  She  took,  and  gave,  no 
concessions.  She  hated  favors.  She  never 
made  a  revoke,  nor  even  passed  it  over  in  her 
adversary  without  exacting  the  utmost  forfeit- 
ure. She  fought  a  good  fight— cut  and  thrust. 
She  held  her  good  sword  (her  cards)  ' '  like  a 
dancer."  She  sat  bolt  upright,  and  neither 
showed  you  her  cards,  nor  desired  to  see  yours. 
All  people  have  their  blind  side — their  supersti- 
tions ;  and  I  have  heard  her  declare,  under  the 
rose,  that  hearts  was  her  favorite  suit. 

I  never  in  my  life — and  I  knew  Sarah  Battle 
many  of  the  best  years  of  it — saw  her  take  out 
her  snuff-box  when  it  was  her  turn  to  play,  or 
snuff  a  candle  in  the  middle  of  a  game,  or  ring 
for  a  servant  till  it  was  fairly  over.  She  never 
introduced  or  connived  at  miscellaneous  con- 
versation during  its  progress.  As  she  emphati- 
cally observed,  * '  cards  were  cards ' '  ;  and  if  I  ever 
saw  unmingled  distaste  in  her  fine  last-century 
countenance,  it  was  at  the  airs  of  a  young  gen- 
tleman of  a  literary  turn,  who  had  been  with 
difficulty  persuaded  to  take  a  hand,  and  who, 
in  his  excess  of  candor,  declared  that  he 
thought  there  was  no  harm  in  unbending  the 
mind  now  and  then,  after  serious  studies,  in 


/IRrs.  :t6attle's  ©pinions  on  XUbiet    73 

recreations  of  that  kind  !  She  could  not  bear 
to  have  her  noble  occupation,  to  which  she 
wound  up  her  faculties,  considered  in  that 
light.  It  was  her  business,  her  duty,  the  thing 
she  came  into  the  world  to  do, — and  she  did  it. 
She  unbent  her  mind  afterwards  over  a  book. 

Pope  was  her  favorite  author  ;  his  "  Rape  of 
the  Lock  "  her  favorite  work.  She  once  did 
me  the  honor  to  play  over  with  me  (with  the 
cards)  his  celebrated  game  of  Ombre  in  that 
poem  ;  and  to  explain  to  me  how  far  it  agreed 
with,  and  in  what  points  it  would  be  found  to 
differ  from,  tradrille.  Her  illustrations  were 
apposite  and  poignant ;  and  I  have  had  the 
pleasure  of  sending  the  substance  of  them  to 
Mr.  Bowles  ;  but  I  suppose  they  came  too  late 
to  be  inserted  among  his  ingenious  notes  upon 
that  author. 

Quadrille,  she  has  often  told  me,  was  her  first 
love  ;  but  whist  had  engaged  her  maturer  es- 
teem. The  former,  she  said,  was  showy  and 
specious,  and  likely  to  allure  young  persons. 
The  uncertainty  and  quick  shifting  of  partners 
— a  thing  which  the  constancy  of  whist  abhors 
— the  dazzling  supremacy  and  regal  investiture 
of  Spadille — absurd,  as  she  justly  observed,  in 
the  pure  aristocracy  of  whist,  where  his  crown 
and  garter  give  him  no  proper  power  above  his 
brother  nobility  of  the  Aces  ; — the  giddy  vanity, 


74  Bssa^s  of  Blta 


so  taking  to  the  inexperienced,  of  playing 
alone  ;  above  all,  the  overpowering  attractions 
of  a  Sans  Prendre  Vole, — to  the  triumph  of 
which  there  is  certainly  nothing  parallel  or  ap- 
proaching, in  the  contingencies  of  whist ; — all 
these,  she  would  say,  make  quadrille  a  game  of 
captivation  to  the  young  and  enthusiastic.  But 
whist  was  the  soldier  game — that  was  her  word. 
It  was  a  long  meal ;  not  like  quadrille,  a  feast 
of  snatches.  One  or  two  rubbers  might  coex- 
tend  in  duration  with  an  evening.  They  gave 
time  to  form  rooted  friendships,  to  cultivate 
steady  enmities.  She  despised  the  chance- 
started,  capricious,  and  ever-fluctuating  alli- 
ances of  the  other.  The  skirmishes  of  quadrille, 
she  would  say,  reminded  her  of  the  petty  ephem- 
eral embroilments  of  the  little  Italian  states,  de- 
picted by  Machiavel,  perpetually  changing  pos- 
tures and  connection  ;  bitter  foes  to-day,  su- 
gared darlings  to-morrow  ;  kissing  and  scratch- 
ing in  a  breath  ; — but  the  wars  of  whist  were 
comparable  to  the  long,  steady,  deep-rooted, 
national  antipathies  of  the  great  French  and 
English  nations. 

A  grave  simplicity  was  what  she  chiefly  ad- 
mired in  her  favorite  game.  There  was  noth- 
ing silly  in  it,  like  the  nob  in  cribbage — noth- 
ing superfluous.  No  flushes — that  most  irra- 
tional of  all  pleas  that  a  reasonable  being  can 


^rs.  JSattle's  ©pinions  on  Ulbist    75 

set  up  ; — that  any  one  should  claim  four  by  vir- 
tue of  holding  cards  of  the  same  mark  and 
color,  without  reference  to  the  playing  of  the 
game,  or  the  individual  worth  or  pretensions  of 
the  cards  themselves !  She  held  this  to  be  a 
solecism  ;  as  pitiful  an  ambition  in  cards  as  al- 
literation is  in  authorship.  She  despised  super- 
ficiality, and  looked  deeper  than  the  colors  of 
things.  Suits  were  soldiers,  she  would  say,  and 
must  have  a  uniformity  of  array  to  distinguish 
them ;  but  w^hat  should  we  say  to  a  foolish 
squire,  who  should  claim  a  merit  from  dressing 
up  his  tenantry  in  red  jackets,  that  never  were 
to  be  marshalled — never  to  take  the  field  ?  She 
even  wished  that  whist  were  more  simple  than 
it  is  ;  and,  in  my  mind,  would  have  stripped  it 
of  some  appendages,  which  in  the  state  of 
human  frailty,  may  be  venially,  and  even  com- 
mendably,  allowed  of.  She  saw  no  reason  for 
the  deciding  of  the  trump  by  the  turn  of  the 
card.  Why  not  one  suit  alw^ays  trumps  ?  Why 
two  colors  when  the  mark  of  the  suits  would 
have  sufficiently  distinguished  them  without  it? 
"  But  the  eye,  my  dear  Madam,  is  agreeably 
refreshed  with  the  variety.  Man  is  not  a  creat- 
ure of  pure  reason — he  must  have  his  senses 
delightfully  appealed  to.  We  see  it  in  Roman 
Catholic  countries,  where  the  music  and  the 
paintings  draw  in  many  to  worship,  whom  your 


76  iBeea^e  of  BUa 


Quaker  spirit  of  un sensualizing  would  have 
kept  out.  You  yourself  have  a  pretty  collec- 
tion of  paintings, — but  confess  to  me,  whether, 
walking  in  your  gallery  at  Sandham,  among 
those  clear  Vandykes,  or  among  the  Paul  Pot- 
ters in  the  anteroom,  you  ever  felt  your  bosom 
glow  with  an  elegant  delight,  at  all  comparable 
to  f/ia^  you  have  it  in  your  power  to  experience 
most  evenings  over  a  well-arranged  assortment 
of  the  court-cards? — the  pretty  antic  habits, 
like  heralds  in  a  procession — the  gay  triumph- 
assuring  scarlets — the  contrasting  deadly-killing 
sables — the  '  hoary  majesty  of  spades  ' — Pam  in 
all  his  glory  ! 

"All  these  might  be  dispensed  with;  and 
with  their  naked  names  upon  the  drab  paste- 
board, the  game  might  go  on  very  well,  pic- 
tureless.  But  the  beauty  of  cards  woiild  be  ex- 
tinguished forever.  Stripped  of  all  that  is  im- 
aginative in  them,  they  must  degenerate  into 
mere  gambling.  Imagine  a  dull  deal  board,  or 
drum-head,  to  spread  them  on,  instead  of  that 
nice  verdant  carpet  (next  to  Nature's),  fittest 
arena  for  those  courtly  combatants  to  play 
their  gallant  jousts  and  tourneys  in  !  Ex- 
change those  delicately-turned  ivory  markers 
— (w^ork  of  Chinese  artists,  unconscious  of  their 
symbol,  or  as  profanely  slighting  their  true 
application  as  the  arrantest  Ephesian  journey- 


/Dbrs.  :JBattle'6  ©pinions  on  XQbist    77 

man  that  turned  out  those  little  shrines  for  the 
goddess) — exchange  them  for  little  bits  of 
leather  (our  ancestors'  money),  or  chalk  and  a 
slate  !  " 

The  old  lady,  with  a  smile,  confessed  the 
soundness  of  my  logic ;  and  to  her  approbation 
of  my  arguments  on  her  favorite  topic  that 
evening,  I  have  always  fancied  myself  indebted 
for  the  legacy  of  a  curious  cribbage-board,  made 
of  the  finest  Sienna  marble,  which  her  mater- 
nal uncle  (old  Walter  Plumer,  whom  I  have 
elsewhere  celebrated),  brought  with  him  from 
Florence  ; — this,  and  a  trifle  of  five  hundred 
pounds,  came  to  me  at  her  death. 

The  former  bequest  (which  I  do  not  least 
value)  I  have  kept  with  religious  care  ;  though 
she  herself,  to  confess  a  truth,  was  never  greatly 
taken  with  cribbage.  It  was  an  essentially 
vulgar  game,  I  have  heard  her  say, — disputing 
with  her  uncle,  who  was  very  partial  to  it.  She 
could  never  heartily  bring  her  mouth  to  pro- 
nounce "  Go  " — or  ''That  'j  a  go.'^  She  called 
it  an  ungrammatical  game.  The  pegging 
teased  her.  I  once  knew  her  to  forfeit  a  rubber 
(a  five-dollar  stake),  because  she  would  not 
take  advantage  of  the  turn-up  knave,  which 
would  have  given  it  her,  but  w^hich  she  must 
have  claimed  by  the  disgraceful  tenure  of  de- 
claring "  two  for  his  heels.''     There  is  some- 


78  Bssags  of  Blta 

thing  extremely  genteel  in  this  sort  of  self- 
denial.  Sarah  Battle  was  a  gentlewoman  born. 
Piquet  she  held  the  best  game  at  the  cards 
for  two  persons,  though  she  would  ridicule  the 
pedantry  of  the  terms, — such  as  pique — repique 
— the  capot, — they  savored  (she  thought)  of 
affectation.  But  games  for  two,  or  even  three, 
she  never  greatly  cared  for.  She  loved  the 
quadrate,  or  square.  She  would  argue  thus  : 
Cards  are  warfare  ;  the  ends  are  gain,  with 
glory.  But  cards  are  war,  in  disguise  of  a 
sport ;  when  single  adversaries  encounter,  the 
ends  proposed  are  too  palpable.  By  themselves, 
it  is  too  close  a  fight ;  M'ith  spectators,  it  is  not 
much  bettered.  No  looker-on  can  be  interested, 
except  for  a  bet,  and  then  it  is  a  mere  affair  of 
money  ;  he  cares  not  for  your  luck  sympatheti- 
cally, or  for  your  play.  Three  are  still  worse  ; 
a  mere  naked  war  of  every  man  against  every 
man,  as  in  cribbage,  without  league  or  alli- 
ance ;  or  a  rotation  of  petty  and  contradictory 
interests,  a  succession  of  heartless  leagues,  and 
not  much  more  hearty  infractions  of  them,  as 
in  tradrille.  But  in  square  games  {she  vieant 
whist),  all  that  is  possible  to  be  attained  in 
card-playing  is  accomplished.  There  are  the 
incentives  of  profit  with  honor,  common  to 
every  species, — though  the  latter  can  be  but 
very  imperfectly  enjoyed  in  those  other  games, 


^r6.  :JBattle'6  ©pinions  on  "Cabist    79 

where  the  spectator  is  only  feebly  a  participa- 
tor. But  the  parties  in  whist  are  spectators  and 
principals  too.  They  are  a  theatre  to  them- 
selves, and  a  looker-on  is  not  wanted.  He  is 
rather  worse  than  nothing,  and  an  imperti- 
nence. Whist  abhors  neutrality,  or  interests 
beyond  its  sphere.  You  glory  in  some  surpris- 
ing stroke  of  skill  or  fortune,  not  because  a 
cold — or  even  an  interested — bystander  wit- 
nesses it,  but  because  your />ar/?«^r  sympathizes 
in  the  contingency.  You  can  win  for  two. 
You  triumph  for  two.  Two  are  exalted.  Two 
again  are  mortified ;  which  divides  their  dis- 
grace, as  the  conjunction  doubles  (by  taking  off 
the  invidiousness)  your  glories.  Two  losing  to 
two  are  better  reconciled,  than  one  to  one  in 
that  close  butchery.  The  hostile  feeling  is 
weakened  by  multiplying  the  channels.  War 
has  become  a  civil  game.  By  such  reasonings 
as  these  the  old  lady  was  accustomed  to  defend 
her  favorite  pastime. 

No  inducement  could  ever  prevail  upon  her 
to  play  at  any  game,  where  chance  entered  into 
the  composition,  for  nothing.  Chance,  she 
would  argue, — and  here  again,  admire  the  sub- 
tlety of  her  conclusion, — chance  is  nothing, 
but  w^here  something  else  depends  upon  it.  It 
is  ob\ious  that  cannot  h^  glory.  What  rational 
cause  of  exultation  could  it  give  to  a  man  to 


8o  jessai^s  of  ;Elta 

turn  up  size  ace  a  hundred  times  together  by 
himself?  or  before  spectators,  where  no  stake 
was  depending  ?  Make  a  lottery  of  a  hundred 
thousand  tickets  with  but  one  fortunate  num- 
ber, and  what  possible  principle  of  our  nature, 
except  stupid  wonderment,  could  it  gratify  to 
gain  that  number  as  many  times  successively, 
without  a  prize?  Therefore  she  disliked  the 
mixture  of  chance  in  backgammon,  where  it 
was  not  played  for  money.  She  called  it  fool- 
ish, and  those  people  idiots  who  were  taken 
with  a  lucky  hit  under  such  circumstances. 
Games  of  pure  skill  were  as  little  to  her  fancy. 
Played  for  a  stake,  they  were  a  mere  system  of 
overreaching.  Played  for  glory,  they  were  a 
mere  setting  of  one  man's  wit, — his  memory,  or 
combination  faculty  rather — against  another's  ! 
like  a  mock  engagement  at  a  review,  bloodless 
and  profitless.  She  could  not  conceive  a  game 
wanting  the  spritely  infusion  of  chance,  the 
handsome  excuses  of  good  fortune.  Two  peo- 
ple playing  at  chess  in  a  corner  of  a  room, 
whilst  whist  was  stirring  in  the  centre,  would 
inspire  her  with  insufferable  horror  and  ennui. 
Those  well-cut  similitudes  of  Castles,  and 
Knights,  the  hnagery  of  the  board,  she  would 
argue,  (and  I  think  in  this  case  justly)  were 
entirely  misplaced  and  senseless.  Those  hard 
head-contests  can  in  no  instance  ally  with  the 


asvs.  :fiSattle'6  Opinions  on  XUbist    Si 

fancy.  They  reject  form  and  color.  A  pencil 
and  drv'  slate  (she  used  to  say)  were  the  proper 
arena  for  such  combatants. 

To  those  puny  objectors  against  cards,  as  nur- 
turing the  bad  passions,  she  would  retort,  that 
man  is  a  gaming  animal.  He  must  be  always 
trying  to  get  the  better  in  something  or  other  ; 
— that  this  passion  can  scarcely  be  more  safely 
expended  than  upon  a  game  at  cards ;  that 
cards  are  a  temporary  illusion  ;  in  truth,  a  mere 
drama  ;  for  we  do  but  p/ay  at  being  mightily 
concerned,  where  a  few  idle  shillings  are  at 
stake,  yet,  during  the  illusion,  we  are  as  might- 
ily concerned  as  those  whose  stake  is  crowns 
and  kingdoms.  They  are  a  sort  of  dream-fight- 
ing ;  much  ado  ;  great  battling  and  little  blood- 
shed ;  mighty  means  for  disproportioned  ends  ; 
quite  as  diverting,  and  a  great  deal  more  in- 
noxious, than  many  of  those  more  serious 
games  of  life  which  men  play,  without  esteem- 
ing them  to  be  such. 

With  great  deference  to  the  old  lady's  judg- 
ment in  these  matters,  I  think  I  have  experi- 
enced some  moments  in  my  life,  when  playing 
at  cards  /or  7iothing  has  even  been  agreeable. 
When  I  am  in  sickness,  or  not  in  the  best 
spirits,  I  sometimes  call  for  the  cards,  and  play 
a  game  at  piquet  for  love  with  my  cousin 
Bridget— Bridget  Elia. 


82  J6s0ag0  of  Blia 


I  grant  there  is  something  sneaking  in  it; 
but  with  a  toothache,  or  a  sprained  ankle, — 
when  you  are  subdued  and  humble, — you  are 
glad  to  put  up  with  an  inferior  spring  of  action. 

There  is  such  a  thing  in  nature,  I  am  con- 
vinced, as  sick  -whist. 

I  grant  it  is  not  the  highest  style  of  man — I 
deprecate  the  manes  of  Sarah  Battle — she  lives 
not,  alas  !  to  whom  I  should  apologize. 

At  such  times,  those  terms,  which  my  old 
friend  objected  to,  come  in  as  something  ad- 
missible. I  love  to  get  a  tierce  or  a  quatorze, 
though  they  mean  nothing.  I  am  subdued  to 
an  inferior  interest.  Those  shadows  of  winning 
amuse  me. 

That  last  game  I  had  with  my  sweet  cousin 
(I  capotted  her) — (dare  I  tell  thee,  how  foolish 
I  am  ?) — I  wished  it  might  have  lasted  forever, 
though  we  gained  nothing,  and  lost  nothing  ; 
though  it  was  a  mere  shade  of  play,  I  would  be 
content  to  go  on  in  that  idle  folly  forever.  The 
pipkin  should  be  ever  boiling,  that  was  to  pre- 
pare the  gentle  lenitive  to  my  foot,  which 
Bridget  was  doomed  to  apply  after  the  game 
was  over ;  and,  as  I  do  not  much  relish  appli- 
ances, there  it  should  ever  bubble.  Bridget 
and  I  should  be  ever  playing. 


A  CHAPTER  OX  EARS. 


I  HAVE  no  ear. 
Mistake  me  not  reader — nor  imagine  that  I 
am  by  nature  destitute  of  those  exterior  twin 
appendages,  hanging  ornaments,  and  (archi- 
tecturally speaking)  handsome  volutes  to  the 
human  capital.  Better  my  mother  had  never 
borne  me.  I  am,  I  think,  rather  delicately  than 
copiously  provided  with  those  conduits  ;  and  I 
feel  no  disposition  to  envy  the  mule  for  his 
plenty,  or  the  mole  for  her  exactness,  in  those 
ingenious  labyrinthine  inlets — those  indispens- 
able side  intelligencers. 

Neither  have  I  incurred,  or  done  any  thing 
to  incur,  with  Defoe,  that  hideous  disfigure- 
ment, which  constrained  him  to  draw  upon 
assurance — to  feel  "quite  unabashed,"  and  at 
ease  upon  that  article.  I  was  never,  I  thank 
my  stars,  in  the  pillory  ;  nor,  if  I  read  them 
aright,  is  it  within  the  compass  of  my  destiny, 
that  I  ever  should  be. 


84  B66ai26  ot  Blia 

When  therefore  I  say  that  I  have  no  ear,  you 
will  understand  me  to  mean— /or  music.  To 
say  that  this  heart  never  melted  at  the  concord 
of  sweet  sounds,  would  be  a  foul  self-libel. 
"  JVafeT  parted  from  the  Sea^'  never  fails  to 
move  it  strangely.  So  does  " /«  Infancy.'''' 
But  they  were  used  to  be  sung  at  her  harpsi- 
chord (the  old-fashioned  instrument  in  vogue  in 
those  days)  by  a  gentlewoman — the  gentlest, 
sure,  that  ever  merited  the  appellation — the 
sweetest— why  should  I  hesitate  to  name  Mrs. 
S.,  once  the  blooming  Fanny  Weatheral  of 
the  Temple — who  had  power  to  thrill  the  soul 
of  Elia,  small  imp  as  he  was,  even  in  his  long 
coats  ;  and  to  make  him  glow,  tremble,  and 
blush  with  a  passion,  that  not  faintly  indicated 
the  dayspring  of  that  absorbing  sentiment, 
which  was  afterwards  destined  to  overwhelm 
and  subdue  his  nature  quite,  for  Alice  W n. 

I  even  think  that  sentimejitally  I  am  disposed 
to  harmony.  But  organically  I  am  incapable  of 
a  tune.  I  have  been  practising  "  God  save  the 
King  "  all  my  life  ;  whistling  and  humming  of 
it  over  to  myself  in  solitary  comers  ;  and  am  not 
yet  arrived,  they  tell  me,  within  many  quavers 
of  it  Yet  hath  the  loyalty  of  Elia  never  been 
impeached. 

I  am  not  without  suspicion,  that  I  have  an 
undeveloped  faculty  of  music  within  me.      For 


U  Cbaptcr  on  Bars 


thrumming  in  my  wild  way,  on  my  friend  A.'s 
piano,  the  other  morning,  while  he  was  en- 
gaged in  an  adjoining  parlor, — on  his  return  he 
was  pleased  to  say,  "  /le  thought  it  could  not  be 
the  maid!''''  On  his  first  surprise  at  hearing 
the  keys  touched  in  somewhat  an  airy  and 
masterful  way,  not  dreaming  of  me,  his  sus- 
picions had  lighted  on  Jenny.  But  a  grace, 
snatched  from  a  superior  refinement,  soon  con- 
vinced him  that  some  being — technically  per- 
haps deficient,  but  higher  informed  from  a 
principle  common  to  all  the  fine  arts — had 
swayed  the  keys  to  a  mood  which  Jenny,  with 
all  her  (less  cultivated)  enthusiasm,  could  never 
have  elicited  from  them.  I  mention  this  as  a 
proof  of  my  friend's  penetration,  and  not  with 
any  view  of  disparaging  Jenny. 

Scientifically  I  could  never  be  made  to  under- 
stand (yet  have  I  taken  some  pains)  what  a 
note  in  music  is  ;  or  how  one  note  should  differ 
from  another.  Much  less  in  voices  can  I  dis- 
tinguish a  soprano  from  a  tenor.  Onl}^  some- 
times the  thorough-bass  I  contrive  to  guess  at, 
from  its  being  supereminently  harsh  and  dis- 
agreeable. I  tremble,  however,  for  my  mis- 
application of  the  simplest  terms  of  that  which 
I  disclaim.  While  I  profess  my  ignorance,  I 
scarce  know  what  to  say  I  am  ignorant  of.  I 
hate,  perhaps,  by  misnomers.      Sostenuto  and 


86  B6sas6  of  Blia 

adagio  stand  in  a  like  relation  of  obscurity  to 
me ;  Sol,  Fa,  Mi,  Re,  is  as  conjuring  as  Bara- 
lipion. 

It  is  hard  to  stand  alone  in  an  age  like  this — 
(constituted  to  the  quick  and  critical  perception 
of  all  harmonious  combinations,  I  verily  believe, 
beyond  all  preceding  ages,  since  Jubal  stumbled 
upon  the  gamut)  to  remain,  as  it  were,  singly 
unimpressible  to  the  magic  influences  of  an  art, 
which  is  said  to  have  such  an  especial  stroke  at 
soothing,  elevating,  and  refining  the  passions. 
Yet,  rather  than  break  the  candid  current  of  my 
confessions,  I  must  avow  to  you,  that  I  have 
received  a  great  deal  more  pain  than  pleasure 
from  this  so  cried-up  faculty. 

I  am  constitutionally  susceptible  of  noises.  A 
carpenter's  hammer,  in  a  warm  summer  noon, 
will  fret  me  into  more  than  midsummer  mad- 
ness. But  those  unconnected,  unset  sounds  are 
nothing  to  the  measured  malice  of  music.  The 
ear  is  passive  to  those  single  strokes  ;  willingly 
enduring  stripes  while  it  hath  no  task  to  con. 
To  music  it  cannot  be  passive.  It  will  strive — 
mine  at  least  will — 'spite  of  its  inaptitude,  to 
thrid  the  maze  ;  like  an  unskilled  eye  painfully 
poring  upon  hieroglyphics.  I  have  sat  through 
an  Italian  Opera,  till,  for  sheer  pain,  and  inex- 
plicable anguish,  I  have  rushed  out  into  the 
noisiest  places  of  the  crowded  streets,  to  solace 


B  Gbapter  on  J6ars  87 

myself  with  sounds,  which  I  was  not  obliged  to 
follow,  and  get  rid  of  the  distracting  torment  of 
endless,  fruitless,  barren  attention  !  I  take  refuge 
in  the  unpretending  assemblage  of  honest  com- 
mon-life sounds  ; — and  the  purgatory  of  the 
Enraged  Musician  becomes  my  paradise. 

I  have  sat  at  an  Oratorio  (that  profanation  of 
the  purposes  of  the  cheerful  playhouse)  watch- 
ing the  faces  of  the  auditory  in  the  pit  (what  a 
contrast  to  Hogarth's  Laughing  Audience  !)  im- 
movable, or  affecting  some  faint  emotion — till 
(as  some  have  said,  that  our  occupations  in  the 
next  world  will  be  but  a  shadow  of  what  de- 
lighted us  in  this)  I  have  imagined  myself  in 
some  cold  Theatre  in  Hades,  where  some  of  the 
forms  of  the  earthly  one  should  be  kept  up,  with 
none  of  the  enjoyment ;  or  like  that 

Party  in  a  parlor 

All  silent,  and  all  damn'd. 

Above  all,  those  insufferable  concertos,  and 
pieces  of  music,  as  they  are  called,  do  plague 
and  embitter  my  apprehension.  Words  are 
something  ;  but  to  be  exposed  to  an  endless 
battery  of  mere  sounds  ;  to  be  long  a-dying  ;  to 
lie  stretched  upon  a  rack  of  roses  ;  to  keep  up 
languQr  by  unintermitted  effort ;  to  pile  honey 
upon  sugar,  and  sugar  upon  honey,  to  an  in- 
terminable tedious  sweetness  ;  to  fill  up  sound 


J600ai20  of  BUa 


with  feeling,  and  strain  ideas  to  keep  pace  with 
it ;  to  gaze  on  empty  frames,  and  be  forced  to 
make  the  pictures  for  yourself ;  to  read  a  book, 
all  slops,  and  be  obliged  to  supply  the  verbal 
matter  ;  to  invent  extempore  tragedies  to  an- 
swer to  the  vague  gestures  of  an  inexplicable 
rambling  mime; — these  are  faint  shadows  of 
what  I  have  undergone  from  a  series  of  the 
ablest  executed  pieces  of  this  empty  inslru- 
mental  music. 

I  deny  not,  that  in  the  opening  of  a  concert, 
I  have  experienced  something  vastly  lulling 
and  agreeable  ; — afterwards  followeth  the  lan- 
guor and  the  oppression.  Like  that  disappoint- 
ing book  in  Patmos  ;  or  like  the  comings  on  of 
melancholy,  described  by  Burton,  doth  music 
make  her  first  insinuating  approaches  :  "  Most 
pleasant  it  is  to  such  as  are  melancholy  given 
to  walk  alone  in  some  solitary  grove,  betwixt 
wood  and  water,  by  some  brook  side,  and  to 
meditate  upon  some  delightsome  and  pleasant 
subject,  which  shall  affect  him  most,  ainabilis 
insania,  and  mentis  gralissmms  error  ;  a  most 
incomparable  delight  to  build  castles  in  the  air, 
to  go  smiling  to  themselves,  acting  an  infinite 
variety  of  parts,  which  they  suppose,  and 
strongly  imagine  they  act,  or  that  th^y  see 
done.  So  delightsome  these  toys  at  first,  they 
could  spend  whole   days   and  nights  without 


B  Cbapter  on  JEars  89 

sleep,  even  whole  years  in  such  contemplations, 
and  fantastical  meditations,  which  are  like  so 
many  dreams,  and  will  hardly  be  drawn  from 
them, — winding  and  unwinding  themselves  as 
so  many  clocks,  and  still  pleasing  their  humors, 
until  at  the  last  the  SCENE  TURNS  upon  a  sud- 
den, and  they  being  now  habituated  to  such 
meditations  and  solitary  places,  can  endure  no 
company,  can  think  of  nothing  but  harsh  and 
distasteful  subjects.  Fear,  sorrow,  suspicion, 
stibrusticus  piidor,  discontent,  cares,  and  weari- 
ness of  life,  surprise  them  on  a  sudden,  and 
they  can  think  of  nothing  else ;  continually 
suspecting,  no  sooner  are  their  eyes  open,  but 
this  infernal  plague  of  melancholy  seizeth  on 
them,  and  terrifies  their  souls,  representing 
some  dismal  object  to  their  minds  ;  which  now, 
b}'  no  means,  no  labor,  no  persuasions,  they  can 
avoid,  they  cannot  be  rid  of,  they  cannot  resist." 

Something  like  this  ''scene  turning"  I 
have  experienced  at  the  evening  parties,  at  the 

house  of  my  good   Catholic   friend   Nov ; 

who,  by  the  aid  of  a  capital  organ,  himself  the 
most  finished  of  players,  converts  his  drawing- 
room  into  a  chapel,  his  week-days  into  Sundays, 
and  these  latter  into  minor  heavens."^ 

When   my  friend   commences  upon   one  of 

*  I  have  been  there,  and  still  would  go  ; 
'T  is  like  a  little  heaven  below.— Dr.  Watts. 


go  ^603^0  of  JElia 


those  solemn  anthems,  which  peradventure 
struck  upon  my  heedless  ear,  rambling  in  the 
side  aisles  of  the  dim  Abbey,  some  five-and- 
thirty  years  since,  waking  a  new  sense,  and 
putting  a  soul  of  old  religion  into  my  young 
apprehension— (whether  it  be  that,  in  which  the 
Psalmist,  weary  of  the  persecutions  of  bad  men, 
wisheth  to  himself  dove's  wings — or  that  other, 
which,  with  a  like  measure  of  sobriety  and  pa- 
thos, inquireth  by  what  means  the  young  man 
shall  best  cleanse  his  mind) — a  holy  calm  per- 
vadeth  me.     I  am  for  the  time 

rapt  above  earth, 

And  possess  joys  not  promised  at  my  birth. 

But  when  this  master  of  the  spell,  not  content 
to  have  laid  his  soul  prostrate,  goes  on,  in  his 
power,  to  inflict  more  bliss  than  lies  in  her  ca- 
pacity to  receive, — impatient  to  overcome  her 
"  earthly ' '  with  his  "  heavenly  " — still  pouring 
in,  for  protracted  hours,  fresh  waves  and  fresh 
from  the  sea  of  sound,  or  from  that  inexhausted 
German  ocean^  above  which,  in  triumphant 
progress,  dolphin  seated,  ride  those  Arions, 
Haydn  and  Mozart,  wdth  their  attendant  Tri- 
tons, Bach,  Beethove7i,  and  a  countless  tribe, 
whom,  to  attempt  to  reckon  up,  would  but 
plunge  me  again  in  the  deeps, — I  stagger  under 
the  weight  of  harmony,  reeling  to  and  fro  at  my 


21  Gbapter  on  jE^vb  gi 

wits'  end  ; — clouds,  as  of  frankincense,  oppress 
me — priests,  altars,  censers,  dazzle  before  me — 
the  genius  of  his  religion  hath  me  in  her  toils — 
a  shadowy  triple  tiara  invests  the  brow  of  my 
friend,  late  so  naked,  so  ingenious, — he  is  Pope, 
— and  by  him  sits,  like  as  in  the  anomaly  of 
dreams,  a  she-Pope  too, — tri-coroneted  like  him- 
self ! — I  am  converted,  and  yet  a  Protestant ; — 
at  once  malleus  hereticorum,  and  myself  grand 
heresiarch  :  or  three  heresies  centre  in  my  per- 
son. I  am  Marcion,  Ebion,  and  Cerinthus — 
Gog  and  Magog — what  not? — till  the  coming 
in  of  the  friendly  supper-tray  dissipates  the 
figment,  and  a  draught  of  true  Lutheran  beer 
(in  which  chiefly  my  friend  shows  himself  no 
bigot)  at  once  reconciles  me  to  the  rationalities 
of  a  purer  faith  ;  and  restores  to  me  the  genu- 
ine unterrifying  aspects  of  my  pleasant-counte- 
nanced host  and  hostess. 


ALL  FOOLS'  DAY. 


THE  compliments  of  the  season  to  my 
worthy  masters,  and  a  merry  first  of  April 
to  us  all  ! 

Many  happy  returns  of  this  day  to  you — and 
you — and  you,  sir — nay,  never  frown,  man,  nor 
put  on  a  long  face  upon  the  matter.  Do  not 
we  know  one  another  ?  What  need  of  ceremony 
among  friends  ?  We  have  all  a  touch  of  t/ia^ 
same — you  understand  me — a  speck  of  the  mot- 
ley. Beshrew  the  man  who  on  such  a  day  as 
this,  WiQ  general  festival,  should  affect  to  stand 
aloof  I  am  none  of  those  sneakers.  I  am  free 
of  the  corporation,  and  care  not  who  knows  it. 
He  that  meets  me  in  the  forest  to-day,  shall 
meet  with  no  wiseacre,  I  can  tell  him.  Stidtus 
sum.  Translate  me  that,  and  take  the  meaning 
of  it  to  yourself  for  your  pains.  What  !  man, 
we  have  four  quarters  of  the  globe  on  our  side, 
at  the  least  computation. 

Fill  us  a  cup  of  that  sparkling  gooseberry, — 


BU  3fools'  2)as  93 


we  will  drink  no  wise,  melancholy,  political 
port  on  this  day, — and  let  us  troll  the  catch  of 
Amiens — due  ad  me — due  ad  me,^r-h.ow  goes  it  ? 

Here  shall  tie  see 
Gross  fools  as  he. 

Now  would  I  give  a  trifle  to  know  historically 
and  authentically,  who  was  the  greatest  fool 
that  ever  lived.  I  would  certainly  give  him 
a  bumper.  'Marry,  of  the  present  breed,  I  think 
I  could,  without  much  difficulty,  name  you  the 
part}'. 

Remove  your  cap  a  little  farther,  if  you 
please  ;  it  hides  my  bauble.  And  now  each 
man  bestride  his  hobby,  and  dust  away  his  bells 
to  what  tune  he  pleases.  I  will  give  you,  for 
my  part, 

The  crazy  old  church  clock, 

And  the  bewilder'd  chimes. 

Good  master  Bmpedocles,  you  are  welcome. 
It  is  long  since  you  went  a  salamander-gather- 
ing down  ^tna.  Worse  than  samphire-pick- 
ing by  some  odds.  'T  is  a  mercy  your  worship 
did  not  singe  your  mustachios. 

Ha  !  Cleombrotus  !  and  what  salads  in  faith 
did  you  light  upon  at  the  bottom  of  the  Medi- 
terranean ?  You  were  founder,  I  take  it,  of  the 
disinterested  sect  of  the  Calenturists. 

Gebir,  my  old  freemason  and  prince  of  plas- 


94  }£s0a^0  ot  IBlm 

terers  at  Babel,  bring  in  your  trowel,  most  An- 
cient Grand  !  You  have  claim  to  a  seat  here  at 
my  right  hand,  as  patron  of  the  stammerers. 
You  left  your  work,  if  I  remember  Herodotus 
correctly,  at  eight  hundred  million  toises,  or 
thereabout,  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Bless 
us,  what  a  long  bell  you  must  have  pulled,  to 
call  your  top  workmen  to  their  luncheon  on  the 
low  grounds  of  Shinar.  Or  did  you  send  up 
your  garlic  and  onions  by  a  rocket  ?  I  am  a 
rogue  if  I  am  not  ashamed  to  show  you  our 
monument  on  Fish-Street  Hill,  after  your  alti- 
tudes.    Yet  we  think  it  somewhat. 

What,  the  magnanimous  Alexander  in  tears  ? 
— cry,  baby,  put  its  finger  in  its  eye,  it  shall 
have  another  globe,  round  as  an  orange,  pretty 
moppet ! 

Mister  Adams 'odso,  I  honor  your  coat — 

pray  do  us  the  favor  to  read  to  us  that  sermon, 
which  you  lent  to  Mistress  Slipslop — the  twenty 
and  second  in  your  portmanteau  there — on  Fe- 
male Incontinence — the  same — it  will  come  in 
most  irreverently  and  impertinently  seasonable 
to  the  time  of  the  day. 

Good  Master  Raymund  Ivully,  you  look  wise. 
Pray  correct  that  error. 

Duns,  spare  your  definitions.  I  must  fine  you 
a  bumper,  or  a  parados.  We  will  have  nothing 
said  or  done  syllogistically  this  day.     Remove 


BU  3Fool0'  2)a^  95 


those  logical  forms,  waiter,  that  no  gentleman 
break  the  tender  shins  of  his  apprehension 
stumbling  across  them. 

Master  Stephen,  you  are  late.  Ha  !  Cokes, 
is  it  you?  Aguecheek,  my  dear  knight,  let  me 
pay  my  devoir  to  you.  Master  Shallow,  your 
worship's  poor  servant  to  command.  Master 
Silence,  I  will  use  a  few  words  with  you.  Slen- 
der, it  shall  go  hard  if  I  edge  not  you  in  some- 
where. You  six  will  engross  all  the  poor  wit  of 
the  company  to-day.     I  know  it,  I  know  it. 

Ha  !  honest  R.,  my  fine  old  Librarian  of 
Ludgate,  time  out  of  mind,  art  thou  here  again  ? 
Bless  thy  doublet,  it  is  not  over-new,  threadbare 
as  thy  stories  ; — what  dost  thou  flitting  about 
the  world  at  this  rate  ?  Thy  customers  are  ex- 
tinct, defunct,  bed-rid,  have  ceased  to  read  long 
ago.  Thou  goest  still  among  them,  seeing  if, 
peradventure,  thou  canst  hawk  a  volume  or  two. 
Good  Granville  S.,  thy  last  patron,  is  flown. 

King  Pandion,  he  is  dead, 
All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead. 

Nevertheless,  noble  R.,  come  in,  and  take 
your  seat  here,  between  Armado  and  Quisada  ; 
for  in  true  courtesy,  in  gravity,  in  fantastic 
smiling  to  thyself,  in  courteous  smiling  upon 
others,  in  the  goodly  ornature  of  well-appar- 
alled   speech,  and  the  commendation  of  wise 


96  :essa^0  of  BUa 


sentences,  thou  art  nothing  inferior  to  those 
accomplished  Dons  of  Spain.  The  spirit  of  chiv- 
alry forsake  me  forever,  when  I  forget  thy  sing- 
ing the  song  of  Macheath,  which  declares  that 
he  might  be  happy  with  either  situated  between 
those  two  ancient  spinsters, — when  I  forget  the 
inimitable  formal  love  which  thou  didst  make, 
turning  now  to  the  one,  and  now  to  the  other, 
with  that  Malvolian  smile — as  if  Cervantes,  not 
Gay,  had  written  it  for  his  hero  ;  and  as  if  thou- 
sands of  periods  must  revolve,  before  the  mir- 
ror of  courtesy  could  have  given  his  invidious 
preference  between  a  pair  of  so  goodly-proper- 
tied and  meritorious-equal  damsels.     .     .     . 

To  descend  from  these  altitudes,  and  not  to 
protract  our  Fools'  Banquet  beyond  its  appro- 
priate day, — for  I  fear  the  second  of  April  is  not 
many  hours  distant, — in  sober  verity  I  will  con- 
fess a  truth  to  thee,  reader.  I  love  a  Fool — as 
naturally,  as  if  I  were  of  kith  and  kin  to  him. 
When  a  child,  with  childlike  apprehensions, 
that  dived  not  below  the  surface  of  the  matter, 
I  read  those  Par-ables — not  guessing  at  the  in- 
volved wisdom, — I  had  more  yearnings  towards 
that  simple  architect,  that  built  his  house  upon 
the  sand,  than  I  entertained  for  his  more  cau- 
tious neighbor  ;  I  grudged  at  the  hard  censure 
pronounced  upon  the  quiet  soul  that  kept  his 
talent ;    and — prizing  their  simplicity  beyond 


BU  ^ool9*  2)as  97 

the  more  provident,  and,  to  my  apprehension, 
somewhat  iinferninine  wariness  of  their  compet- 
itors— I  felt  a  kindliness,  that  almost  amounted 
to  a  tendre,  for  those  five  thoughtless  virgins.  I 
have  never  made  an  acquaintance  since,  that 
lasted,  or  a  friendship  that  answered,  with  any 
that  had  not  some  tincture  of  the  absurd  in 
their  characters.  I  venerate  an  honest  obliquity 
of  understanding.  The  more  laughable  blun- 
ders a  man  shall  commit  in  your  company,  the 
more  tests  he  giveth  you,  that  he  will  not  be- 
tray or  overreach  you.  I  love  the  safety  which 
a  palpable  hallucination  warrants  ;  the  security 
which  a  word  out  of  season  ratifies.  And  take 
my  word  for  this,  reader,  and  say  a  fool  told  it 
to  you,  if  you  please,  that  he  who  hath  not  a 
dram  of  folly  in  his  mixture,  hath  pounds  of 
much  worse  matter  in  his  composition.  It  is 
observed,  that  "the  foolisherthe  fowl  or  fish, — 
woodcocks — dotterels — cods'  heads, — etc.,  the 
finer  the  flesh  thereof";  and  what  are  com- 
monly the  world's  received  fools,  but  such 
whereof  the  world  is  not  worthy?  and  what 
have  been  some  of  the  kindliest  patterns  of  our 
species,  but  so  many  darlings  of  absurdity, 
minions  of  the  goddess,  and  her  white  boys  ? 
Reader,  if  you  wrest  my  words  beyond  their 
fair  construction,  it  is  not  I,  but  you,  that  are 
the  April  Fool, 


A  QUAKERS'    MEETING. 

stillborn  Silence  !  thou  that  art 

Floodgate  of  the  deeper  heart ! 

Offspring  of  a  heavenly  kind  ! 

Frost  o'  the  mouth,  and  thaw  o'  the  mind 

Secrecy's  confidant,  and  he 

Who  makes  religion  mystery ! 

Admiration's  speaking'st  tongue  ! 

I^eave  thy  desert  shades  among 

Reverend  hermits'  hallov^^'d  cells, 

Where  retired  devotion  dvp^ells  ! 

With  thy  enthusiasms  come, 

Seize  our  tongues,  and  strike  us  dumb  !  * 


READER,  would'st  thou  know  what  true 
peace  and  quiet  mean  ;  would'st  thou  find 
a  refuge  from  the  noises  and  clamors  of  the 
multitude ;  would'st  thou  enjoy  at  once  solitude 
and  society  ;  would'st  thou  possess  the  depth  of 
thine  own  spirit  in  stillness,  without  being  shut 
out  from  the  consolatory  faces  of  thy  species  ; 
would'st  thou  be  alone,  and  yet  accompanied  ; 
solitary,  yet  not  desolate ;    singular,    yet    not 

*  From  "  Poems  of  all  Sorts,"  by  Richard  Fleckno, 
1653. 


B  QuaF^ers'  faceting  99 

without  some  to  keep  thee  in  countenance  ;  a 
unit  in  aggregate ;  a  simple  in  composite ; — 
come  with  me  into  a  Quakers'  JNIeeting. 

Dost  thou  love  silence  deep  as  that  "before 
the  winds  were  made"?  go  not  out  into  the 
wilderness  ;  descend  not  into  the  profundities 
of  the  earth  ;  shut  not  up  thy  casements ;  nor 
pour  wax  into  the  little  cells  of  thy  ears  with 
little-faith 'd  self-mistrusting  Ulysses.  Retire 
with  me  into  a  Quakers'  Meeting. 

For  a  man  to  refrain  even  from  good  words, 
and  to  hold  his  peace,  it  is  commendable ;  but 
for  a  multitude,  it  is  great  mastery. 

What  is  the  stillness  of  the  desert,  compared 
with  this  place  ?  what  the  uncommunicating 
muteness  of  fishes? — here  the  goddess  reigns 
and  revels.  "  Boreas,  and  Cesias,  and  Argestes 
loud,"  do  not  with  their  inter-confounding  up- 
roars more  augment  the  brawl — nor  the  waves 
of  the  blown  Baltic  with  their  clubbed  sounds 
— than  their  opposite  (Silence,  her  sacred  self) 
is  multiplied  and  rendered  more  intense  by 
numbers,  and  by  sympathy.  She  too  hath  her 
deeps,  that  call  unto  deeps.  Negation  itself 
hath  a  positive  more  and  less  ;  and  closed  eyes 
would  seem  to  obscure  the  great  obscurity  of 
midnight. 

There  are  wounds  which  an  imperfect  soli- 
tude cannot  heal.     By  imperfect  I  mean  that 


JE0sa^6  of  :iElia 


which  a  man  enjoy eth  by  himself.  The  perfect 
is  that  which  he  can  sometimes  attain  in  crowds, 
but  nowhere  so  absolutely  as  in  a  Quakers' 
Meeting.  Those  first  hermits  did  certainly  un- 
derstand this  principle,  when  they  retired  into 
Egyptian  solitudes,  not  singly,  but  in  shoals,  to 
enjoy  one  another's  want  of  conversation.  The 
Carthusian  is  bound  to  his  brethren  by  this 
agreeing  spirit  of  incommunicativeness.  In 
secular  occasions,  what  so  pleasant  as  to  be 
reading  a  book  through  a  long  winter  evening, 
with  a  friend  sitting  by — say,  a  wife — he,  or 
she,  too,  (if  that  be  probable,)  reading  another, 
without  interruption,  or  oral  communication } 
— can  there  be  no  sympathy  without  the  gabble 
of  words  ?  Away  with  this  inhuman,  shy,  sin- 
gle, shade- an  d-cavern-haunting  solitariness. 
Give  me.  Master  Zimmermann,  a  sympathetic 
solitude. 

To  pace  alone  in  the  cloisters  or  side  aisles 
of  some  cathedral,  time-stricken  ; 

Or  under  hanging  mountains, 
Or  by  the  fall  of  fountains  ; 

is  but  a  vulgar  luxury,  compared  with  that 
which  those  enjoy  who  come  together  for  the 
purposes  of  more  complete,  abstracted  solitude. 
This  is  the  loneliness  "to  be  felt."  The  Abbey 
Church  of  Westminster  hath  nothing  so  solemn 


B  (iiuafiere'  Meeting 


so  spirit-soothing,  as  the  naked  walls  and 
benches  of  a  Quakers'  Meeting.  Here  are  no 
tombs,  no  inscriptions, — 


Sands,  ignoble  things, 


Dropt  from  the  ruined  sides  of  kings  ; — 

but  here  is  something  which  throws  Antiquity 
herself  into  the  foreground — SiLEXCE — eldest 
of  things — language  of  old  Night — primitive 
Discourser — to  which  the  insolent  decays  of 
mouldering  grandeur  have  but  arrived  by  a  vio- 
lent, and,  as  w^e  may  say,  unnatural  progres- 
sion. 

How  reverend  is  the  view  of  these  hushed  heads, 
Looking  tranquillity  ! 

Nothing-plotting,  nought-caballing,  unmis- 
chievous  synod  !  convocation  without  intrigue  ! 
parliament  without  debate  !  what  a  lesson  dost 
thou  read  to  council,  and  to  consistory  !  If  my 
pen  treat  of  you  lightly — as  haply  it  will  wan- 
der— yet  my  spirit  hath  gravely  felt  the  wisdom 
of  your  custom,  when  sitting  among  you  in 
deepest  peace,  which  some  out-welling  tears 
would  rather  confirm  than  disturb,  I  have  re- 
verted to  the  times  of  your  beginnings,  and  the 
sowings  of  the  seed  by  Fox  and  Dewesbury.  I 
have  witnessed  that  which  brought  before  my 
eyes  your  heroic  tranquillity,  inflexible  to  the 
rude  jests  and  serious  violences  of  the  insolent 


JEssa^e  ot  JEUa 


soldiery,  republican  or  royalist,  sent  to  molest 
you, — for  ye  sat  betwixt  the  fires  of  two  perse- 
cutions, the  outcast  and  offscouring  of  church 
and  presbytery.  I  have  seen  the  reeling  sea- 
ruffian,  who  had  wandered  into  your  receptacle 
with  the  avowed  intention  of  disturbing  your 
quiet,  from  the  very  spirit  of  the  place  receive 
in  a  moment  a  new  heart,  and  presently  sit 
among  ye,  as  a  lamb  amidst  lambs.  And  I  re- 
member Penn  before  his  accusers,  and  Fox  in 
the  bail  dock,  where  he  was  lifted  up  in  spirit, 
as  he  tells  us,  and  "  the  Judge  and  the  Jur>'  be- 
came as  dead  men  under  his  feet." 

Reader,  if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  it,  I 
would  recommend  to  you,  above  all  church-nar- 
ratives, to  read  Sewel's  "  History  of  the  Quak- 
ers." It  is  in  folio,  and  is  the  abstract  of  the 
Journals  of  Fox  and  the  primitive  Friends.  It 
is  far  more  edifying  and  affecting  than  any 
thing  you  will  read  of  Wesley  and  his  col- 
leagues. Here  is  nothing  to  stagger  you,  noth- 
ing to  make  you  mistrust,  no  suspicion  of  alloy, 
no  drop  or  dreg  of  the  worldly  or  ambitious 
spirit.  You  will  here  read  the  true  story  of 
that  much-injured,  ridiculed  man,  (who  perhaps 
hath  been  a  by-word  in  your  mouth) — ^James 
Nay  lor  :  what  dreadful  sufferings,  with  what 
patience,  he  endured,  even  to  the  boring 
through  of  his  tongue  with  red-hot  iron,  with- 


U  ^\xn\\cxe*  Meeting  103 

out  a  murmur  ;  and  with  what  strength  of 
mind,  when  the  delusion  he  had  fallen  into, 
which  they  stigmatized  for  blasphemy,  had  given 
way  to  clearer  thoughts,  he  could  renounce  his 
error,  in  a  strain  of  the  beautifullest  humility, 
yet  keep  his  first  grounds,  and  be  a  Quaker 
still ! — so  different  from  the  practice  of  your 
common  converts  from  enthusiasm,  who,  when 
they  apostatize,  apostatize  all,  and  think  they 
can  never  get  far  enough  from  the  society  of 
their  former  errors,  even  to  the  renunciation  of 
some  saving  truths,  with  which  they  had  been 
mingled,  not  implicated. 

Get  the  writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart ; 
and  love  the  early  Quakers. 

How  far  the  followers  of  these  good  men  in 
our  days  have  kept  to  the  primitive  spirit,  or 
in  what  proportion  they  have  substituted  for- 
mality for  it,  the  Judge  of  Spirits  can  alone 
determine.  I  have  seen  faces  in  their  assem- 
blies, upon  which  the  dove  sat  visibly  brooding. 
Others  again  I  have  watched,  when  my  thoughts 
should  have  been  better  engaged,  in  which  I 
could  possibly  detect  nothing  but  a  blank  in- 
anity. But  quiet  was  in  all,  and  the  disposition 
to  unanimity,  and  the  absence  of  the  fierce  con- 
troversial workings.  If  the  spiritual  pretensions 
of  the  Quakers  have  abated,  at  least  they  make 
few  pretences.     Hypocrites  they  certainly  are 


I04  jE06a^6  ot  JElia 


^ 


not,  in  their  preaching.  It  is  seldom  indeed 
that  you  shall  see  one  get  up  amongst  them  to 
hold  forth.  Only  now  and  then  a  trembling, 
female,  generally  ajicient,  voice  is  heard — you 
cannot  guess  from  what  part  of  the  meeting  it 
proceeds — with  a  low,  buzzing,  musical  sound, 
laying  out  a  few  words,  which  "she  thought 
might  suit  the  condition  of  some  present,"  with 
a  quaking  diffidence,  which  leaves  no  possi- 
bility of  supposing  that  any  thing  of  female 
vanity  was  mixed  up,  where  the  tones  were  so 
full  of  tenderness  and  a  restraining  modesty. 
The  men,  for  what  I  have  observed,  speak 
seldomer. 

Once  only,  and  it  was  some  years  ago,  I  wit- 
nessed a  sample  of  the  old  Foxian  orgasm.  It 
was  a  man  of  giant  stature,  who,  as  Words- 
worth phrases  it,  might  have  danced  "from 
head  to  foot  equipt  in  iron  mail. ' '  His  frame 
was  of  iron  too.  But  he  was  malleable.  I  saw 
him  shake  all  over  with  the  spirit — I  dare  not 
say  of  delusion.  The  strivings  of  the  outer  man 
were  unutterable — he  seemed  not  to  speak, 
but  to  be  spoken  from.  I  saw  the  strong  man 
bowed  down,  and  his  knees  to  fail — his  joints 
all  seemed  loosening.  It  was  a  figure  to  set  off 
against  Paul  Preaching.  The  words  he  uttered 
were  few,  and  sound — he  was  evidently  resist- 
ing his  will — keeping  down  his  own  word-wis- 


%  Quakers*  Meeting  105 


dom  with  more  mighty  efifort,  than  the  world's 
orators  strain  for  theirs.  ' '  He  had  been  a  wiT 
in  his  youth,"  he  told  us,  with  expressions  cf  a 
sober  remorse.  And  it  was  not  till  long  after 
the  impression  had  begun  to  wear  away,  that  I 
was  enabled,  with  something  like  a  smile,  to 
recall  the  striking  incongruity  of  the  confes- 
sion— understanding  the  term  in  its  worldly 
acceptation — with  the  frame  and  physiognomy 
of  the  person  before  me.  His  brow  would  have 
scared  away  the  Levites — the  Jocos  Risus-que — 
faster  than  the  Loves  fled  the  face  of  Dis  at 
Enna.  By  zui^,  even  in  his  youth,  I  will  be 
sworn,  he  understood  something  far  within  the 
limits  of  an  allowable  liberty. 

More  frequently  the  Meeting  is  broken  up 
without  a  word  having  been  spoken.  But  th^ 
mind  has  been  fed.  You  go  away  with  a  ser- 
mon not  made  with  hands.  You  have  been  in 
the  milder  cavern  of  Trophonius  ;  or  as  in  some 
den,  where  that  fiercest  and  savagest  of  all  wild 
creatures,  the  ToxGUE,  that  unruly  member,  has 
strangely  lain  tied  up  and  captive.  You  have 
bathed  with  stillness.  O,  when  the  spirit  is  sore 
fettered,  even  tired  to  sickness  of  the  janglings, 
and  nonsense-noises  of  the  world,  what  a  balm 
and  solace  it  is,  to  go  and  seat  yourself,  for  a 
quiet  half  hour,  upon  some  undisputed  corner 
of  a  bench,  among  the  gentle  Quakers  ! 


io6  JEssa^s  of  :6Ua 


Their  garb  and  stillness  conjoined,  present  a 
uniformity,  tranquil  and  herd-like — as  in  the 
pasture, — "  forty  feeding  like  one." 

The  very  garments  of  a  Quaker  seem  incapa- 
ble of  receiving  a  soil ;  and  cleanliness  in  them 
to  be  something  more  than  the  absence  of  its 
contrary.  Every  Quakeress  is  a  lily  ;  and  when 
they  come  up  in  bands  to  their  Whitsun-confer- 
ences,  whitening  the  easterly  streets  of  the  me- 
tropolis, from  all  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
they  show  like  troops  of  the  Shining  Ones. 


THE   OLD  AND   THE   NEW  SCHOOL- 
MASTER. 

MY  reading  has  been  lamentably  desultory 
and  immethodical.  Odd,  out-of-the-way 
old  English  plays  and  treatises,  have  supplied 
me  with  most  of  my  notions,  and  ways  of  feel- 
ing. In  every  thing  that  relates  to  science,  I 
am  a  whole  Encyclopaedia  behind  the  rest  of 
the  world.  I  should  have  scarcely  cut  a  figure 
among  the  franklins,  or  country  gentlemen,  in 
King  John's  days.  I  know  less  geography  than 
a  school-boy  of  six  weeks'  standing.  To  me  a 
map  of  old  Ortelius  is  as  authentic  as  Arrow- 
smith.  I  do  not  know  whereabout  Africa 
merges  into  Asia ;  whether  Ethopia  lie  in  one 
or  other  of  those  great  divisions  ;  nor  can  form 
the  remotest  conjecture  of  the  position  of  New 
South  Wales,  or  Van  Diemen's  Land.  Yet  do 
I  hold  a  correspondence  with  a  very  dear  friend 
in  the  first-named  of  these  two  Terrae  Incog- 
nitse.  I  have  no  astronomy.  I  do  not  know 
where  to  look  for  the  Bear,  or  Charles'  Wain ; 
the  place  of  any  star ;  or  the  name  of  any  of 


io8  jessa^s  ot  Blia 


them  at  sight.  I  guess  a  Venus  only  by  her 
brightness  ;  and  if  the  sun  on  some  portentous 
morn  were  to  make  his  first  appearance  in  the 
West,  I  verily  believe,  that,  while  all  the  world 
were  gasping  in  apprehension  about  me,  I  alone 
should  stand  unterrified,  from  sheer  incuriosity 
and  want  of  observation.  Of  history  and  chro- 
nology I  possess  some  vague  points,  such  as  one 
cannot  help  picking  up  in  the  course  of  mis- 
cellaneous study  ;  but  I  never  deliberately  sat 
down  to  a  chronicle,  even  of  my  own  country. 
I  have  most  dim  apprehensions  of  the  four 
great  monarchies  ;  and  sometimes  the  Assyrian, 
sometimes  the  Persian,  floats  as  Jirs^,  in  my 
fancy.  I  make  the  widest  conjectures  concern- 
ing Egypt  and  her  shepherd  kings.  My  friend 
M.,  with  great  painstaking,  got  me  to  think  I 
understood  the  first  proposition  in  Euclid,  but 
gave  me  over  in  despair  at  the  second.  I  am 
entirely  unacquainted  with  the  modern  lan- 
guages ;  and,  like  a  better  man  than  myself, 
have  "small  Latin,  and  less  Greek."  I  am  a 
stranger  to  the  shapes  and  texture  of  the  com- 
monest trees,  herbs,  flowers, — not  from  the  cir- 
cumstance of  my  being  town-born, — for  I  should 
have  brought  the  same  inobservant  spirit  into 
the  world  with  me,  had  I  first  seen  it  "on  Dev- 
on's leafy  shores, " — and  am  no  less  at  a  loss 
among    purely    town-objects,    tools,    engines, 


^be  Scbool^/IRastcr  109 

mechanic  processes.  Not  that  I  affect  igno- 
rance— but  my  head  has  not  many  mansions, 
nor  spacious  ;  and  I  have  been  obliged  to  fill  it 
with  such  cabinet  curiosities  as  it  can  hold  with- 
out aching.  I  sometimes  wonder  how  I  have 
passed  my  probation  with  so  little  discredit  in 
the  world,  as  I  have  done,  upon  so  meagre  a 
stock.  But  the  fact  is,  a  man  may  do  very  well 
with  a  very  little  knowledge,  and  scarce  be 
found  out,  in  mixed  company  ;  everybody  is  so 
much  more  ready  to  produce  his  own,  than  to 
call  for  a  display  of  your  acquisitions.  But  in  a 
tete-a-tete  there  is  no  shuffling.  The  truth  will 
out.  There  is  nothing  which  I  dread  so  much 
as  the  being  left  alone  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
with  a  sensible,  well-informed  man,  that  does 
not  know  me.  I  lately  got  into  a  dilemma  of 
this  sort. 

In  one  of  my  daily  jaunts  between  Bishops- 
gate  and  Shacklewell,  the  coach  stopped  to 
take  up  a  staid-looking  gentleman,  about  the 
wrong  side  of  thirty,  who  was  giving  his  part- 
ing directions  (while  the  steps  were  adjusting) 
in  a  tone  of  mild  authority,  to  a  tall  youth, 
who  seemed  to  be  neither  his  clerk,  his  son, 
nor  his  ser\"ant,  but  something  partaking  of  all 
three.  The  youth  was  dismissed,  and  we  drove 
on.  As  we  were  the  sole  passengers,  he  natur- 
ally enough  addressed  his  conversation  to  me  ; 


no  JEssa^s  of  l£Ua 

and  we  discussed  the  merits  of  the  fare,  the 
civility  and  punctuality  of  the  driver  ;  the  cir- 
cumstance of  an  opposition  coach  having  been 
lately  set  up,  with  the  probabilities  of  its  suc- 
cess,— to  all  which  I  was  enabled  to  return 
pretty  satisfactory  answers,  having  been  drilled 
into  this  kind  of  etiquette  by  some  years'  daily 
practice  of  riding  to  and  fro  in  the  stage  afore- 
said,— when  he  suddenly  alarmed  me  by  a 
startling  question,  whether  I  had  seen  the  show 
of  prize  cattle  that  morning  in  Smithfield? 
Now,  as  I  had  not  seen  it,  and  do  not  greatly 
care  for  such  sort  of  exhibitions,  I  was  obliged 
to  return  a  cold  negative.  He  seemed  a  little 
mortified  as  well  as  astonished  at  my  declara- 
tion, as  (it  appeared)  he  was  just  come  fresh 
from  the  sight,  and  doubtless  had  hoped  to 
compare  notes  on  the  subject.  However,  he 
assured  me  that  I  had  lost  a  fine  treat,  as  it  far 
exceeded  the  show  of  last  year.  We  were  now 
approaching  Norton  Folgate,  when  the  sight  of 
some  shop- goods  ticketed  freshened  him  up 
into  a  dissertation  upon  the  cheapness  of  cot- 
tons this  spring.  I  was  now  a  little  in  heart, 
as  the  nature  of  my  morning  avocations  had 
brought  me  into  some  sort  of  familiarity  with 
the  raw  material  ;  and  I  was  surprised  to  find 
how  eloquent  I  was  becoming  on  the  state  of 
the  India  market, — when,  presently,  he  dashed 


Ube  ScbooU/Bbaster 


my  incipient  vanity  to  the  earth  at  once,  by 
inquiring  whether  I  had  ever  made  any  calcu- 
lation as  to  the  value  of  the  rental  of  all  the 
retail  shops  in  London.  Had  he  asked  of  me 
what  song  the  Siren  sang,  or  what  name 
Achilles  assumed  when  he  hid  himself  among 
women,  I  might,  with  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
have  hazarded  a  "wade  solution."*  My  com- 
panion saw'  my  embarrassment,  and,  the  alms- 
houses beyond  Shoreditch  just  coming  in  view, 
with  great  good-nature  and  dexterity  shifted 
his  conversation  to  the  subject  of  public  chari- 
ties ;  which  led  to  the  comparative  merits  of 
provision  for  the  poor  in  past  and  present  times, 
with  observations  on  the  old  monastic  institu- 
tions, and  charitable  orders  ;  but,  finding  me 
rather  dimly  impressed  with  some  glimmering 
notions  from  old  poetic  associations,  than 
strongly  fortified  with  any  speculations  redu- 
cible to  calculation  on  the  subject,  he  gave  the 
matter  up ;  and,  the  country  beginning  to  open 
more  and  more  upon  us,  as  we  approached  the 
turnpike  at  Kingsland  (the  destined  termina- 
tion of  his  journey),  he  put  a  home  thrust  upon 
me,  in  the  most  unfortunate  position  he  could 
have  chosen,  by  advancing  some  queries  rela- 
tive to  the  North  Pole  Expedition,  While  I 
was  muttering  out  something  about  the  pan- 
*  "  Urn  Burial." 


112  Bssa^s  ot  BUa 


orama  of  those  strange  regions  (which  I  had 
actually  seen),  by  way  of  parrying  the  ques- 
tion, the  coach  stopping  relieved  me  from  any 
further  apprehensions.  My  companion  getting 
out,  left  me  in  the  comfortable  possession  of 
my  ignorance  ;  and  I  heard  him,  as  he  went  off, 
putting  questions  to  an  outside  passenger,  who 
had  alighted  with  him,  regarding  an  epidemic 
disorder  that  had  been  rife  about  Dalston,  and 
which  my  friend  assured  him  had  gone  through 
five  or  six  schools  in  that  neighborhood.  The 
truth  now  flashed  upon  me,  that  my  companion 
was  a  school-master  ;  and  that  the  youth  whom 
he  had  parted  from  at  our  first  acquaintance, 
must  have  been  one  of  the  bigger  boys,  or  the 
usher.  He  was  evidently  a  kind-hearted  man, 
who  did  not  seem  so  much  desirious  of  provok- 
ing discussion  by  the  questions  which  he  put,  as 
of  obtaining  information  at  any  rate.  It  did 
not  appear  that  he  took  any  interest,  either,  in 
such  kind  of  inquiries,  for  their  own  sake ;  but 
that  he  was  in  some  way  bound  to  seek  for 
knowledge.  A  greenish-colored  coat  which  he 
had  on,  forbade  me  to  surmise  that  he  was  a 
clergyman.  The  adventure  gave  birth  to  some 
reflections  on  the  difference  between  persons  of 
his  profession  in  past  and  present  times. 

Rest  to  the    souls  of   those  fine   old   peda- 
gogues ;  the  breed,  long  since  extinct,  of  the 


^be  ScbooIs/lRaster  113 


Lilys,  and  the  Lin  acres ;  who  believing  that  all 
learning  was  contained  in  the  languages  which 
they  taught,  and  despising  every  other  acquire- 
ment as  superficial  and  useless,  came  to  their 
task  as  to  a  sport !  Passing  from  infancy  to  age, 
they  dreamed  away  all  their  days  as  in  a  gram- 
mar-school. Revolving  in  a  perpetual  cycle  of 
declensions,  conjugations,  syntaxes,  and  proso- 
dies ;  renewing  constantly  the  occupations 
which  had  charmed  their  studious  childhood; 
rehearsing  continually  the  part  of  the  past ; 
life  must  have  slipped  from  them  at  last  like 
one  day.  They  were  always  in  their  first 
garden,  reaping  harvests  of  their  golden  time, 
among  their  Flori  and  their  Spici-legia ;  in 
Arcadia  still,  but  kings ;  the  ferule  of  their 
sway  not  much  harsher,  but  of  like  dignity 
with  that  mild  sceptre  attributed  to  King  Basil- 
eus  ;  the  Greek  and  Latin,  their  stately  Pamela 
and  their  Philoclea  ;  with  the  occasional  dunc- 
ery  of  some  untoward  tyro,  servnng  for  a  re- 
freshing interlude  of  a  Mopsa  or  a  clown 
Damoetas  ! 

With  what  a  savor  doth  the  preface  to  Colet's 
or  (as  it  is  sometimes  called)  Paul's  ' '  Accidence, ' ' 
set  forth  !  "To  exhort  every  man  to  the  learn- 
ing of  grammar  that  intendeth  to  attain  the 
understanding  of  the  tongues,  wherein  is 
contained    a    great    treasury    of    wisdom    and 


114  B60as6  ot  Blla 

knowledge,  it  would  seem  but  vain  and  lost 
labor  ;  for  so  much  as  it  is  known,  that  nothing 
can  surely  be  ended,  whose  beginning  is  either 
feeble  or  faulty  ;  and  no  building  be  perfect 
whereas  the  foundation  and  groundwork  is 
ready  to  fall,  and  unable  to  uphold  the  burden 
of  the  frame."  How  well  doth  this  stately  pre- 
amble (comparable  to  those  which  Milton  com- 
mendeth  as  "having  been  the  usage  to  prefix 
to  some  solemn  law,  then  first  promulgated  by 
Solon,  or  Lycurgus,")  correspond  \s-ith  and  illus- 
trate that  pious  zeal  for  conformity,  expressed 
in  a  succeeding  clause,  which  would  fence  about 
grammar-rules,  with  the  severity  of  faith-arti- 
cles ! — "as  for  the  diversity  of  grammars,  it  is 
well  profitably  taken  away  by  the  Kings 
Majesties  wisdom,  who,  foreseeing  the  incon- 
venience, and  favorably  pro\'iding  the  remedie, 
caused  one  kind  of  grammar  by  sundry  learned 
men  to  be  diligently  drawn,  and  so  to  be  set 
out,  only  ever}''  where  to  be  taught,  for  the  use 
of  learners,  and  for  the  hurt  in  changing  of 
schoolmaisters. "  What  a  gusto  in  that  which 
follows  :  "  wherein  it  is  profitable  that  he  [the 
pupil]  can  orderly  decline  his  noun,  and  his 
verb."     //z'^  noun  ! 

The  fine  dream  is  fading  away  fast ;  and  the 
least  concern  of  a  teacher  in  the  present  day  is 
to  inculcate  grammar  rules. 


Zbc  ScbooU/Hbaster  115 

The  modern  school-master  is  expected  to 
know  a  httle  of  every  thing,  because  his  pupil  is 
required  not  to  be  entirely  ignorant  of  any 
thing.  He  must  be  superficially,  if  I  may  say 
so,  omniscient.  He  is  to  know  something 
of  pneumatics,  of  chemistry',  of  whatever  is 
curious,  or  proper  to  excite  the  attention  of  the 
youthful  mind  ;  an  insight  into  mechanics  is 
desirable,  with  a  touch  of  statistics  ;  the  quality 
of  soils,  etc.;  botany,  the  constitution  of  his 
country,  ciwi  multis  aliis.  You  may  get  a  no- 
tion of  some  part  of  his  expected  duties  by  con- 
sulting the  famous  Tractate  on  Education, 
addressed  to  Mr.  Hartlib. 

All  these  things — these,  or  the  desire  of  them, 
— he  is  expected  to  instil,  not  by  set  lessons 
from  professors,  which  he  may  charge  in  the 
bill,  but  at  school-intervals,  as  he  walks  the 
streets,  or  saunters  through  green  fields  (those 
natural  instructors),  with  his  pupils.  The  least 
part  of  what  is  expected  from  him,  is  to  be  done 
in  school  hours.  He  must  insinuate  knowledge 
at  the  mollia  tempora  fandi.  He  must  seize 
every  occasion — the  season  of  the  year — the 
time  of  the  day — a  passing  cloud — a  rainbow — a 
wagon  of  hay — a  regiment  of  soldiers  going  by 
— to  inculcate  something  useful.  He  can  re- 
ceive no  pleasure  from  a  casual  glimpse  of  Na- 
ture, but  must  catch  at  it  as  an  object  of  instruc- 


ii6  jessa^s  of  Blia 

tion.  He  must  interpret  beauty  into  the 
picturesque.  He  cannot  relish  a  beggar-man, 
or  a  gypsy,  for  thinking  of  the  suitable  improve- 
ment. Nothing  comes  to  him,  not  spoiled  by 
the  sophisticating  medium  of  moral  uses.  The 
Universe — that  Great  Book,  as  it  has  been 
called — is  to  him  indeed,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, a  book,  out  of  which  he  is  doomed  to 
read  tedious  homilies  to  distasting  school-boys. 
Vacations  themselves  are  none  to  him,  he  is 
only  rather  worse  off  than  before ;  for  common- 
ly he  has  some  intrusive  upper-boy  fastened 
upon  him  at  such  times  ;  some  cadet  of  a  great 
family ;  some  neglected  lump  of  nobility,  or 
gentry  ;  that  he  must  drag  after  him  to  the  play, 
to  the  Panorama,  to  Mr.  Hartley's  Orrery,  to  the 
Panopticon,  or  into  the  country,  to  a  friend's 
house,  or  his  favorite  watering-place.  Wher- 
ever he  goes,  this  uneasy  shadow  attends  him. 
A  boy  is  at  his  board,  and  in  his  path,  and  in  all 
his  movements.  He  is  boy-rid,  sick  of  perpet- 
ual boy. 

Boys  are  capital  fellows  in  their  own  way, 
among  their  mates ;  but  they  are  unwholesome 
companions  for  grown  people.  The  restraint  is 
felt  no  less  on  the  one  side,  than  on  the  other. 
Even  a  child,  "that  plaything  for  an  hour," 
tires  always.  The  noises  of  children,  playing 
their  own  fancies — as  I  now  hearken  to  them  by 


Cbe  Scbools^aster  117 

fits,  sporting  on  the  green  before  my  window, 
while  I  am  engaged  in  these  grave  speculations 
at  my  neat  suburban  retreat  at  Shacklewell — 
by  distance  made  more  sweet — inexpressibly 
take  from  the  labor  of  my  task.  It  is  like 
writing  to  music.  They  seem  to  modulate  my 
periods.  They  ought  at  least  to  do  so, — for  in 
the  voice  of  that  tender  age  there  is  a  kind  of 
poetry,  far  unlike  the  harsh  prose-accents  of 
man's  conversation.  I  should  but  spoil  their 
sport,  and  diminish  my  own  sympathy  for 
them,  by  mingling  in  their  pastime. 

I  would  not  be  domesticated  all  my  days  with 
a  person  of  very  superior  capacity  to  my  own, — 
not,  if  I  know  myself  at  all,  from  any  consider- 
ations of  jealousy  or  self-comparison,  for  the 
occasional  communion  with  such  minds  has 
constituted  the  fortune  and  felicity  of  my  life, 
— but  the  habit  of  too  constant  intercourse  with 
spirits  above  you,  instead  of  raising  you,  keeps 
you  down.  Too  frequent  doses  of  original 
thinking  from  others,  restrain  what  lesser  por- 
tion of  that  faculty  you  may  possess  of  your 
own.  You  get  entangled  in  another  man's 
mind,  even  as  you  lose  yourself  in  another 
man's  grounds.  You  are  walking  with  a  tall 
varlet,  whose  strides  out-pace  yours  to  lassitude. 
The  constant  operation  of  such  potent  agency 
would  reduce  me,  I  am  convinced,  to  imbecility. 


Bssa^s  ot  lElia 


You  may  derive  thoughts  from  others ;  your 
way  of  thinking,  the  mould  in  which  your 
thoughts  are  cast,  must  be  your  own.  Intellect 
may  be  imparted,  but  not  each  man's  intellec- 
tual frame. 

As  little  as  I  should  wish  to  be  always  thus 
dragged  upward,  as  little  (or  rather  still  less)  is 
it  desirable  to  be  stunted  downward  by  your 
associates.  The  trumpet  does  not  more  stun 
you  by  its  loudness,  than  a  whisper  teases  you 
by  its  provoking  inaudibility. 

Why  are  we  never  quite  at  our  ease  in  the 
presence  of  a  school-master? — because  we  are 
conscious  that  he  is  not  quite  at  his  ease  in  ours. 
He  is  awkward,  and  out  of  place,  in  the  society 
of  his  equals.  He  comes  like  Gulliver  from 
among  his  little  people,  and  he  cannot  fit  the 
stature  of  his  understanding  to  yours.  He  can- 
not meet  you  on  the  square.  He  wants  a  point 
given  him,  like  an  indifferent  whist-player.  He 
is  so  used  to  teaching,  that  he  wants  to  be 
teaching  you.  One  of  these  professors,  upon 
my  complaining  that  these  little  sketches  of 
mine  were  any  thing  but  methodical,  and  that  I 
was  unable  to  make  them  otherwise,  kindly 
offered  to  instruct  me  in  the  method  by  which 
young  gentlemen  in  his  seminary  were  taught 
to  compose  English  themes.  The  jests  of  a 
school-master  are  coarse,  or  thin.    They  do  not 


^be  Scbools/iRaster  ng 

tell  out  of  school.  He  is  under  the  restraint  of 
a  formal  or  didactive  hypocrisy  in  company,  as  a 
clergyman  is  under  a  moral  one.  He  can  no 
more  let  his  intellect  loose  in  society,  than  the 
other  can  his  inclmations.  He  is  forlorn  among 
his  coevals  ;  his  juniors  cannot  be  his  friends. 

"I  take  blame  to  myself,"  said  a  sensible 
man  of  this  profession,  writing  to  a  friend  re- 
specting a  youth  who  had  quitted  his  school 
abruptly,  "that  your  nephew  was  not  more  at- 
tached to  me.  But  persons  in  my  situation  are 
more  to  be  pitied,  than  can  well  be  imagined. 
We  are  surrounded  by  3'oung  and,  consequently, 
ardently  affectionate  hearts,  but  we  can  never 
hope  to  share  an  atom  of  their  affections.  The 
relation  of  master  and  scholar  forbids  this. 
How  pleasing  this  must  be  to  you,  how  I  envy 
your  feelings !  my  friends  will  sometimes  say 
to  me,  when  they  see  young  men  whom  I  have 
educated,  return  after  some  years'  absence  from 
school,  their  eyes  shining  with  pleasure,  while 
they  shake  hands  with  their  old  master,  bring- 
ing a  present  of  game  to  me,  or  a  toy  to  my 
wife,  and  thanking  me  in  the  warmest  terms  for 
my  care  of  their  education.  A  holiday  is  begged 
for  the  boys  ;  the  house  is  a  scene  of  happiness  ; 
I,  only,  am  sad  at  heart.  This  fine-spirited  and 
warm-hearted  youth,  who  faiicies  he  repays  his 
master  with  gratitude  for  the  care  of  his  boyish 


JEssa^s  of  BIta 


years — this  young  man — in  the  eight  long  years 
I  watched  over  him  with  a  parent's  anxiety, 
never  could  repay  me  with  one  look  of  genuine 
feeling.  He  was  proud,  when  I  praised  ;  he  was 
submissive,  when  I  reproved  him  ;  but  he  did 
never  love  me  ; — and  what  he  now  mistakes  for 
gratitude  and  kindness  for  me,  is  but  the  pleas- 
ant sensation  which  all  persons  feel  at  revisit- 
ing the  scenes  of  their  boyish  hopes  and  fears  ; 
and  the  seeing  on  equal  terms  the  man  they 
were  accustomed  to  look  up  to  with  reverence. 
My  wdfe  too,"  this  interesting  correspondent 
goes  on  to  say,  "my  once  darling  Anna,  is  the 
wife  of  a  school-master.  When  I  married  her, 
— knowing  that  the  wife  of  a  school-master 
ought  to  be  a  busy  notable  creature,  and  fearing 
that  my  gentle  Anna  would  ill  supply  the  loss 
of  my  dear  bustling  mother,  just  then  dead,  who 
never  sat  still,  was  in  every  part  of  the  house  in 
a  moment,  and  whom  I  was  obliged  sometimes 
to  threaten  to  fasten  down  in  a  chair,  to  save 
her  from  fatiguing  herself  to  death, — I  expressed 
my  fears  that  I  was  bringing  her  into  a  way  of 
life  unsuitable  to  her ;  and  she,  who  loved  me 
tenderly,  promised  for  my  sake  to  exert  herself 
to  perform  the  duties  of  her  new  situation.  She 
promised,  and  she  has  kept  her  word.  What  won- 
ders will  not  woman's  love  perform?  My  house 
is  managed  with  a  propriety  and  decorum  un- 


^be  Scbools/lbaster 


known  in  other  schools  ;  my  boys  are  well  fed, 
look  healthy,  and  have  every  proper  accommo- 
dation ;  and  all  this  is  performed  with  a  careful 
economy,  that  never  descends  to  meanness. 
But  I  have  lost  my  gentle,  helpless  Anna ! 
When  we  sit  down  to  enjoy  an  hour  of  repose 
after  the  fatigue  of  the  day,  I  am  compelled  to 
listen  to  what  have  been  her  useful  (and  they 
are  really  useful)  employments  through  the 
day,  and  what  she  proposes  for  her  to-morrow's 
task.  Her  heart  and  her  features  are  changed 
by  the  duties  of  her  situation.  To  the  boys,  she 
never  appears  other  than  the  master's  wife,  and 
she  looks  up  to  me  as  the  boy's  master ;  to  whom 
all  show  of  love  and  affection  would  be  highly 
improper,  and  unbecoming  the  dignity  of  her 
situation  and  mine.  Yet  this  my  gratitude  for- 
bids me  to  hint  to  her.  For  my  sake  she  sub- 
mitted to  be  this  altered  creature,  and  can  I  re- 
proach her  for  it  ? " — For  the  communication  of 
this  letter,  I  am  indebted  to  my  cousin  Bridget. 


IMPERFECT  SYMPATHIES. 

I  am  of  a  constitution  so  general,  that  it  consorts  and 
sympathizeth  with  all  things  ;  I  have  no  antipathy,  or 
rather  idiosyncrasy  in  any  thing.  Those  natural  repug- 
nances do  not  touch  me,  nor  do  I  behold  with  prejudice 
the  French,  Italian,  Spaniard,  or  Dutch.  —  "Religio 
Medici." 


THAT  the  author  of  the  "Religio  Medici," 
mounted  upon  the  airy  stilts  of  abstrac- 
tion, conversant  about  notional  and  conjectural 
essences  ;  in  whose  categories  of  Being  the  pos- 
sible took  the  upper  hand  of  the  actual ;  should 
have  overlooked  the  impertinent  individualities 
of  such  poor  concretions  as  mankind,  is  not 
much  to  be  admired.  It  is  rather  to  be  won- 
dered at,  that  in  the  genius  of  animals  he  should 
have  condescended  to  distinguish  that  species 
at  all.  For  myself — earthbound  and  fettered  to 
the  scene  of  my  activities, — 

standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  sky, 

I  confess  that  I  do  feel  the  differences  of  man- 


•ffmpertect  Sgmpatbies  123 

kind,  national  or  individual,  to  an  unhealthy- 
excess.  I  can  look  with  no  indifferent  eye 
upon  things  or  persons.  Whatever  is,  is  to  me 
a  matter  of  taste  or  distaste  ;  or  when  once  it 
becomes  indifferent,  it  begins  to  be  disrelishing. 
I  am,  in  plainer  words,  a  bundle  of  prejudices — 
made  up  of  likings  and  dislikings — the  veriest 
thrall  to  sympathies,  apathies,  antipathies.  In 
a  certain  sense,  I  hope  it  may  be  said  of  me  that 
I  am  a  lover  of  my  species.  I  can  feel  for  all 
indifferently,  but  I  cannot  feel  toward  all  equally. 
The  more  purely  English  w^ord  that  expresses 
sympathy,  will  better  explain  my  meaning.  I 
can  be  a  friend  to  a  worthy  man,  who  upon  an- 
other account  cannot  be  my  mate  or  fellow.  I 
cannot  like  all  people  alike.* 

I  have  been  trying  all  my  life  to  like  Scotch- 
men, and  am  obliged  to  desist  from  the  experi- 
ment in  despair.  They  cannot  like  me, — and 
in  truth,  I  never  knew  one  of  that  nation  who 


*I  would  be  understood  as  confining  myself  to  the  sub- 
ject of  imperject  sympathies.  To  nations  or  classes  of  men 
there  can  be  no  direct  antipathy.  There  may  be  individ- 
uals born  and  constellated  so  opposite  to  another  indi- 
vidual nature,  that  the  same  sphere  cannot  hold  them. 
I  have  met  with  my  moral  antipodes,  and  can  believe 
the  story  of  two  person^  meeting  (who  never  saw  one 
another  before  m  their  lives)  and  instantly  fighting. 

We  by  proof  find  there  should  be 

'Twixt  man  and  man  such  an  antipathy, 
That  though  he  can  show  no  just  reason  why 
For  any  former  wrong  or  injury 


124  )B66tL^6  ot  JEUa 

attempted  to  do  it.  There  is  something  more 
plain  and  ingenuous  in  their  mode  of  proceed- 
ing. "We  know  one  another  at  first  sight. 
There  is  an  order  of  imperfect  intellects  (under 
which  mine  must  be  content  to  rank)  which  in 
its  constitution  is  essentially  anti-Caledonian. 
The  owners  of  the  sort  of  faculties  I  allude  to 
have  minds  rather  suggestive  than  compre- 
hensive. They  have  no  pretences  to  much 
clearness  or  precision  in  their  ideas,  or  in  their 
manner  of  expressing  them.  Their  intellectual 
wardrobe  (to  confess  fairly)  has  few  whole 
pieces  in  it.  They  are  content  with  fragments 
and  scattered  pieces  of  Truth.  She  presents  no 
full  front  to  them — a  feature  or  side-face  at  the 
most.  Hints  and  glimpses,  germs  and  crude 
essays  at  a  system,  is  the  utmost  they  pretend 
to.  They  beat  up  a  little  game  peradventure — 
and  leave  it  to  knottier  heads,  more  robust  con- 
stitutions, to  run  it  down.    The  light  that  lights 


Can  neither  find  a  blemish  in  his  fame, 
Nor  aught  in  face  or  feature  justly  blame, 
Can  challenge  or  accuse  him  of  no  evil, 
Yet  notwithstanding,  hates  him  as  a  devil. 
The  lines  are  from  old  Hej'wood  s  "  Hierarchic  of  An- 
gels," and  he  subjoins  a  curious  story  in  confirmation, 
of  a  Spaniard  who  attempted  to  assassinate  a  King  Fer- 
dinand of  Spain,  and  being  put  to  the  rack  could  give 
no  other  reason  for  the  deed  but  an  inveterate  antipathy 
which  he  had  taken  at  the  first  sight  of  the  king. 

The  cause  which  to  that  act  compell'd  him 

Was,  he  ne'er  loved  him  since  he  first  beheld  him. 


flmpertcct  Sgmpatbies  125 


them  is  not  steady  and  polar,  but  mutable  and 
shifting ;  waxing,  and  again  waning.  Their 
conversation  is  accordingly.  They  will  throw 
out  a  random  word  in  or  out  of  season,  and  be 
content  to  let  it  pass  for  what  it  is  worth.  They 
cannot  speak  always  as  if  they  were  upon  their 
oath, — but  must  be  understood,  speaking  oi 
writing,  with  some  abatement.  They  seldoi... 
wait  to  mature  a  proposition,  but  e'en  bring  it 
to  market  in  the  green  ear.  They  delight  to 
impart  their  defective  discoveries  as  they  arise, 
without  waiting  for  their  full  development. 
They  are  no  systematizers,  and  would  but  err 
more  by  attempting  it.  Their  minds,  as  I  said 
before,  are  suggestive  merely.  The  brain  of  a 
true  Caledonian  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  is  con- 
stituted upon  quite  a  different  plan.  His 
Minerva  is  born  in  panoply.  You  are  never 
admitted  to  see  his  ideas  in  their  growth, — if, 
indeed,  they  do  grow,  and  are  not  rather  put 
together  upon  principles  of  clock-work.  You 
never  catch  his  mind  in  an  undress.  He  never 
hints  or  suggests  any  thing,  but  unlades  his 
stock  of  ideas  in  perfect  order  and  complete- 
ness. He  brings  his  total  wealth  into  company, 
and  gravely  unpacks  it.  His  riches  are  always 
about  him.  He  never  stoops  to  catch  a  glitter- 
ing something  in  your  presence  to  share  it  with 
j'ou,  before  he  quite  knows  whether  it  be  true 


126  J£00as0  or  j£Ua 

touch  or  not.  You  cannot  cry  halves  to  any 
thing  that  he  finds.  He  does  not  find,  but 
bring.  You  never  witness  his  first  apprehension 
of  a  thing.  His  understanding  is  always  at  its 
meridian, — you  never  see  the  first  dawn,  the 
early  streaks.  He  has  no  falterings  of  self- 
suspicion.  Surmises,  guesses,  misgivings,  half- 
intuitions,  semi-consciousnesses,  partial  illumi- 
nations, dim  instincts,  embryo  conceptions, 
have  no  place  in  his  brain  or  vocabulary.  The 
twilight  of  dubiety  never  falls  upon  him.  Is  he 
orthodox — he  has  no  doubts.  Is  he  an  infidel — 
he  has  none  either.  Between  the  affirmative 
and  the  negative  there  is  no  border-land  with 
him.  You  cannot  hover  with  him  upon  the 
confines  of  truth,  or  wander  in  the  maze  of  a 
probable  argument.  He  always  keeps  the  path. 
You  cannot  make  excursions  with  him — for  he 
sets  you  right.  His  taste  never  fluctuates.  His 
morality  never  abates.  He  cannot  compromise, 
or  understand  middle  actions.  There  can  be 
but  a  right  and  a  wrong.  His  conversation  is 
as  a  book.  His  affirmations  have  the  sanctity 
of  an  oath.  You  must  speak  upon  the  square 
with  him.  He  stops  a  metaphor  like  a  sus- 
pected person  in  an  enemy's  country.  "A 
healthy  book  !  " — said  one  of  his  countrymen 
to  me,  who  had  ventured  to  give  that  appella- 
tion to  "John  Buncle," — "Did  I  catch  rightly 


Umpertect  Ssmpatbies  127 

what  you  said?  I  have  heard  of  a  man  in 
health,  and  of  a  healthy  state  of  body,  but  I  do 
not  see  how  that  epithet  can  be  properly  applied 
to  a  book."  Above  all,  you  must  beware  of 
indirect  expressions  before  Caledonian.  Clap 
an  extinguisher  upon  your  irony,  if  you  are  un- 
happily blest  with  a  vein  of  it.  Remember  you 
are  upon  your  oath.  I  have  a  print  of  a  grace- 
ful female  after  Leonardo   da  Vinci,   which  I 

was  showing  off  to  Mr.  .     After  he  had 

examined  it  minutely,  I  ventured  to  ask  him 
how  he  liked  my  beauty  (a  foolish  name  it 
goes  by  among  my  friends  J, — when  he  very 
gravely  assured  me  that  "  he  had  considerable 
respect  for  my  character  and  talents,"  [so  he 
was  pleased  to  say,]  "but  had  not  given  him- 
self much  thought  about  the  degree  of  my 
personal  pretensions."  The  misconception 
staggered  me,  but  did  not  seem  much  to  dis- 
concert him.  Persons  of  this  nation  are  par- 
ticularly fond  of  affirming  a  truth  —  which 
nobody  doubts.  They  do  not  so  properly 
affirm,  as  annunciate  it.  They  do  indeed 
appear  to  have  such  a  love  of  truth  (as  if,  like 
virtue,  it  were  valuable  for  itself),  that  all 
truth  becomes  equally  valuable,  whether  the 
proposition  that  contains  it  be  new  or  old, 
disputed,  or  such  as  is  impossible  to  become  a 
subject  of  disputation.     I  was  present  not  long 


T28  J606ag0  of  Blia 

since  at  a  party  of  North  Britons,  where  a  son 
of  Burns  was  expected,  and  happened  to  drop  a 
silly  expression  (in  my  South  British  way), 
that  I  wished  it  were  the  father  instead  of  the 
sou, — when  four  of  them  started  up  at  once  to 
inform  me  that  "that  was  impossible,  because 
he  was  dead."  An  impracticable  wish,  it  seems, 
was  more  than  they  could  conceive.  Swift  has 
hit  off  this  part  of  their  character,  namely,  their 
love  of  truth,  in  his  biting  way,  but  with  an  il- 
liberality  that  necessarily  confines  the  passage 
to  the  margin.*  The  tediousness  of  these 
people  is  certainly  provoking.  I  wonder  if  they 
ever  tire  one  another  ?  In  my  early  life  I  had  a 
passionate  fondness  for  the  poetry  of  Burns.  I 
have  sometimes  foolishly  hoped  to  ingratiate 
myself  with  his  countrymen  by  expressing  it. 
But  I  have  always  found  that  a  true  Scot  re- 
sents your  admiration  of  his  compatriot,  even 
more  than  he  would  your  contempt  of  him. 
The  latter  he  imputes  to  your  "imperfect  ac- 


*  There  are  some  people  who  think  they  sufiaciently 
acquit  themselves,  and  entertain  their  company,  with  re- 
lating facts  of  no  consequence,  not  at  all  out  of  the  road 
of  such  common  incidents  as  happens  every  day ;  and 
this  I  have  observed  more  frequently  among  the  Scots 
than  any  other  nation,  who  are  very  careful  not  to 
omit  the  minutest  circumstances  of  time  or  place ; 
which  kind  of  discourse,  if  it  were  not  a  little  relieved  by 
the  uncouth  terms  and  phrases,  as  well  as  accent  and 
gesture  peculiar  to  that  country,  would  be  hardly  toler- 
able.—//^z«/5  towards  an  Essay  07i  Convetsation. 


tlmperfect  S^nipatbies  129 


quaintance  with  many  of  the  words  which  he 
uses  "  ;  and  the  same  objection  makes  it  a  pre- 
sumption in  you  to  suppose  that  you  can  admire 
him.  Thomson  they  seem  to  have  forgotten. 
Smollett  they  have  neither  forgotten  nor  for- 
given, for  his  delineation  of  Rory  and  his  com- 
panion, upon  their  first  introduction  to  our  me- 
tropolis. Speak  of  Smollett  as  a  great  genius,  and 
they  will  retort  upon  you  Hume's  History  com- 
pared with  his  Continuation  of  it.  What  if  the 
historian  had  continued  "  Humphrey  Clinker  "  ? 
I  have,  in  the  abstract,  no  disrespect  for  Jews. 
They  are  a  piece  of  stubborn  antiquity,  com- 
pared with  which  Stonehenge  is  in  its  nonage. 
They  date  beyond  the  Pyramids.  But  I  should 
not  care  to  be  in  habits  of  familiar  intercourse 
with  any  of  that  nation.  I  confess  that  I  have 
not  the  nerves  to  enter  their  synagogues.  Old 
prejudices  cling  about  me.  I  cannot  shake  ofiF 
the  story  of  Hugh  of  Lincoln.  Centuries  of 
injury,  contempt,  and  hate,  on  the  one  side, — of 
cloaked  revenge,  dissimulation,  and  hate  on  the 
other, — between  our  and  their  fathers,  must 
and  ought  to  affect  the  blood  of  the  children.  I 
cannot  believe  it  can  run  clear  and  kindly  yet ; 
or  that  a  few  fine  words,  such  as  candor,  liber- 
ality, the  light  of  a  nineteenth  century,  can 
close  up  the  breaches  of  so  deadly  a  disunion. 
A  Hebrew  is  nowhere  congenial  to  me.     He  is 


I30  lEeea^e  of  JElla 

least  distasteful  on  'Change — for  the  mercantile 
spirit  levels  all  distinctions,  as  all  are  beauties 
in  the  dark.  I  boldly  confess  that  I  do  not  rel- 
ish the  approximation  of  Jew  and  Christian, 
which  has  become  so  fashionable.  The  recip- 
rocal endearments  have,  to  me,  something 
hypocritical  and  unnatural  in  them.  I  do  not 
like  to  see  the  Church  and  Synagogue  kissing 
and  congeeing  in  awkward  postures  of  an  af- 
fected civility.  If  l/iey  are  converted,  why  do 
they  not  come  over  to  us  altogether  ?  Why 
keep  up  a  form  of  separation,  when  the  life  of 
it  is  fled  ?  If  they  can  sit  with  us  at  table,  why 
do  they  kick  at  our  cookery  ?  I  do  not  under- 
stand these  half  convertites.  Jews  christianiz- 
ing— Christians  judaizing — puzzle  me.  I  like 
fish  or  flesh.  A  moderate  Jew  is  a  more  con- 
founding piece  of  anomaly  than  a  wet  Quaker. 
The  spirit  of  the  synagogue  is  essentially  sepa- 
rative. B.  would  have  been  more  in  keep- 
ing if  he  had  abided  by  the  faith  of  his  fore- 
fathers. There  is  a  fine  scorn  in  his  face,  which 
nature  meant  to  be  of Christians.  The  He- 
brew spirit  is  strong  in  him,  in  spite  of  his 
proselytism.  He  cannot  conquer  the  Shibbo- 
leth. How  it  breaks  out  when  he  sings,  "  The 
Children  of  Israel  passed  through  the  Red  Sea  ! " 
The  auditors,  for  the  moment,  are  as  Egyptians 
to  him,  and  he  rides  over  our  necks  in  triumph. 


flmpcrfect  S^mpatbies  131 

There  is  no  mistaking  him.  B.  has  a  strong 
expression  of  sense  in  his  countenance,  and  it  is 
confirmed  by  his  singing.  The  foundation  of 
his  vocal  excellence  is  sense.  He  sings  with 
understanding,  as  Kemble  delivered  dialogue. 
He  would  sing  the  Commandments,  and  give 
an  appropriate  character  to  each  prohibition. 
His  nation,  in  general,  have  not  over-sensible 
countenances.  How  should  they? — but  you  sel- 
dom see  a  silly  expression  among  them.  Gain 
and  the  pursuit  of  gain,  sharpen  a  man's  visage. 
I  never  heard  of  an  idiot  being  bom  among 
them.  Some  admire  the  Jewish  female  phy- 
siognomy, I  admire  it — but  with  trembling. 
Jael  had  those  full  dark  inscrutable  eyes. 

In  the  Negro  countenance  you  will  often 
meet  with  strong  traits  of  benignity.  I  have 
felt  yearnings  of  tenderness  towards  some  of 
those  faces — or  rather  masks — that  have  looked 
out  kindly  upon  one  in  casual  encounters  in 
the  streets  and  highways.  I  love  what  Fuller 
beautifully  calls — these  "  images  of  God  cut  in 
ebony."  But  I  should  not  like  to  associate 
with  them,  to  share  my  meals  and  my  good 
nights  with  them — because  they  are  black. 

I  love  Quaker  ways,  and  Quaker  worship.  I 
venerate  the  Quaker  principles.  It  does  me 
good  for  the  rest  of  the  day  when  I  meet  any  of 
their  people  in  my  path.     When  I  am  rufiled  or 


t32  Bssa^e  ot  Blia 


disturbed  by  any  occurrence,  the  sight  or  quiet 
voice  of  a  Quaker  acts  upon  me  as  a  ventilator, 
lightening  the  air,  and  taking  off  a  load  from 
the  bosom.  But  I  cannot  like  the  Quakers  (as 
Desdemona  would  say)  "  to  live  with  them."  I 
am  all  over  sophisticated — with  humors,  fan- 
cies, craving  hourly  sympathy.  I  must  have 
books,  pictures,  theatres,  chit-chat,  scandal, 
jokes,  ambiguities,  and  a  thousand  whim- 
whams,  which  their  simpler  taste  can  do  with- 
out. I  should  starve  at  their  primitive  banquet. 
My  appetites  are  too  high  for  the  salads  which 
(according  to  Evelyn)  Eve  dressed  for  the 
angel,  my  gusto  too  excited 

To  sit  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse. 

The  indirect  answers  which  Quakers  are  often 
found  to  return  to  a  question  put  to  them  may 
be  explained,  I  think,  without  the  vulgar  as- 
sumption that  they  are  more  given  to  evasion 
and  equivocating  than  other  people.  They 
naturally  look  to  their  words  more  carefully, 
and  are  more  cautious  of  committing  them- 
selves. They  have  a  peculiar  character  to  keep 
up  on  this  head.  They  stand  in  a  manner  upon 
their  veracity.  A  Quaker  is  by  law  exempted 
from  taking  an  oath.  The  custom  of  resorting 
to  an  oath  in  extreme  cases,  sanctified  as  it  is 
by  all  religious  antiquity,  is  apt  (it  must  be  con- 


•ffmperfect  S^mpatblee  133 

fessed)  to  introduce  into  the  laxersort  of  minds 
the  notion  of  two  kinds  of  truth — the  one  ap- 
plicable to  the  solemn  affairs  of  justice,  and  the 
other  to  the  common  proceedings  of  daily  in- 
tercourse. As  truth  bound  upon  the  conscience 
by  an  oath  can  be  but  truth,  so  in  the  common 
affirmations  of  the  shop  and  the  market-place  a 
latitude  is  expected,  and  conceded  upon  ques- 
tions wanting  this  solemn  covenant.  Some- 
thing less  than  truth  satisfies.  It  is  common  to 
hear  a  person  say,  "You  do  not  expect  me  to 
speak  as  if  I  were  upon  my  oath."  Hence  a 
great  deal  of  incorrectness  and  inadvertency, 
short  of  falsehood,  creeps  into  ordinary  conver- 
sation ;  and  a  kind  of  secondary  or  laic-truth  is 
tolerated,  where  clergy -truth, — oath-truth,  by 
the  nature  of  the  circumstances,  is  not  required. 
A  Quaker  knows  none  of  this  distinction.  His 
simple  affirmation  being  received  upon  the  most 
sacred  occasions,  without  any  further  test, 
stamps  a  value  upon  the  words  w^hich  he  is  to 
use  upon  the  most  indifferent  topics  of  life.  He 
looks  to  them,  naturally,  w4th  more  severity. 
You  can  have  of  him  no  more  than  his  word. 
He  knows,  if  he  is  caught  tripping  in  a  casual 
expression,  he  forfeits,  for  himself  at  least,  his 
claim  to  the  invidious  exemption.  He  knows 
that  his  syllables  are  weighed ;  and  how  far  a 
consciousness   of  this  particular  watchfulness, 


134  lEem^s  of  Blfa 

exerted  against  a  person,  has  a  tendency  to  pro- 
duce indirect  answers,  and  a  diverting  of  the 
question  by  honest  means,  might  be  illustrated, 
and  the  practice  justified,  by  a  more  sacred  ex- 
ample than  is  proper  to  be  adduced  on  this  oc- 
casion. The  admirable  presence  of  mind,  which 
is  notorious  in  Quakers  upon  all  contingencies, 
might  be  traced  to  this  imposed  self-watchful- 
ness, if  it  did  not  seem  rather  an  humble  and 
secular  scion  of  that  old  stock  of  religious  con- 
stancy, which  never  bent  or  faltered  in  the 
Primitive  Friends,  or  gave  way  to  the  wunds  of 
persecution,  to  the  violence  of  judge  or  accuser, 
under  trials  and  racking  examinations.  "You 
will  never  be  the  wdser,  if  I  sit  here  answering 
your  questions  till  midnight,"  said  one  of  those 
upright  Justicers  of  Penn,  who  had  been  put- 
ting law-cases  with  a  puzzling  subtlety.  ' '  There- 
after as  the  answers  may  be,"  retorted  the 
Quaker.  The  astonishing  composure  of  this 
people  is  sometimes  ludicrously  displayed  in 
lighter  instances.  I  was  travelling  in  a  stage- 
coach with  three  male  Quakers,  buttoned  up  in 
the  straightest  non-conformity  of  their  sect. 
We  stopped  to  bait  at  Andover,  where  a  meal, 
partly  tea  apparatus,  partly  supper,  was  set  be- 
fore us.  My  friends  confined  themselves  to  the 
tea-table.  I,  in  my  way,  took  supper.  When 
the  landlady  brought  in  the  bill,  the  eldest  of 


IFmperfect  S^mpatbles  135 

my  companions  discovered  that  she  had  charged 
for  both  meals.  This  was  resisted.  Mine 
hostess  was  very  clamorous  and  positive.  Some 
mild  arguments  were  used  on  the  part  of  the 
Quakers,  for  which  the  heated  mind  of  the  good 
lady  seemed  by  no  means  a  fit  recipient.  The 
guard  came  in  with  his  usual  peremptory  no- 
tice. The  Quakers  pulled  out  their  money  and 
formally  tendered  it — so  much  for  tea, — I  in 
humble  imitation  tendering  mine — for  the  sup- 
per which  I  had  taken.  She  would  not  relax  in 
her  demand.  So  they  all  three  quietly  put  up 
their  silver,  as  did  myself,  and  marched  out  of 
the  room,  the  eldest  and  gravest  going  first, 
with  myself  closing  up  the  rear,  who  thought  I 
could  not  do  better  than  follow  the  example  of 
such  grave  and  warrantable  personages.  We 
got  in.  The  steps  went  up.  The  coach  drove 
off.  The  murmurs  of  mine  hostess  not  very  in- 
distinctly or  ambiguously  pronounced,  became 
after  a  time  inaudible, — and  now  my  conscience, 
which  the  whimsical  scene  had  for  a  while  sus- 
pended, beginning  to  give  some  twitches,  I 
waited,  in  the  hope  that  some  justification 
would  be  offered  by  these  serious  persons  for 
the  seeming  injustice  of  their  conduct.  To  my 
great  surprise,  not  a  syllable  was  dropped  on  the 
subject.  They  sat  as  mute  as  at  a  meeting.  At 
length  the  eldest  of  them  broke  silence  by  in- 


136 


Bssai^s  ot  JEIia 


quiring  of  his  next  neighbor,  "  Hast  thee  heard 
how  indigoes  go  at  the  India  House?" — and 
the  question  operated  as  a  soporific  on  my 
moral  feeling  as  far  as  Bxeter. 


WITCHES,  AND   OTHER   NIGHT   FEARS. 


WE  are  too  hasty  when  we  set  down  our  an- 
cestors in  the  gross  for  fools,  for  the 
monstrous  inconsistencies  (as  they  seem  to  us) 
involved  in  their  creed  of  witchcraft.  In  the 
relations  of  this  visible  world  we  find  them  to 
have  been  as  rational  and  shrewd  to  detect  an 
historic  anomaly  as  ourselves.  But  when  once 
the  in\-isible  world  w^as  supposed  to  be  opened, 
and  the  lawless  agency  of  bad  spirits  assumed, 
what  measures  of  probability,  of  decency,  of 
fitness,  or  proportion — of  that  which  distin- 
guishes the  likely  from  the  palpable  absurd — 
could  they  have  to  guide  them  in  the  rejection 
or  admission  of  any  particular  testimony? 
That  maidens  pined  away,  wasting  inwardly  as 
their  waxen  images  consumed  before  a  fire — 
that  com  was  lodged,  and  cattle  lamed — that 
whirlwinds  uptore  in  diabolic  revelrv-  the  oaks 
of  the  forests — or  that  spits  and  kettles  only 
danced  a  fearful  innocent  vagary  about  some 
rustic's  kitchen  when  no  wind  was  stirring, — 
were   all    equally    probable    where  no    law  of 


138  B60ai56  Of  BUa 

agency  was  understood.  That  the  prince  of  the 
powers  of  darkness,  passing  by  the  flower  and 
pomp  of  the  earth,  should  lay  preposterous 
siege  to  the  weak  fantasy  of  indigent  eld — has 
neither  likelihood  nor  unlikelihood  a  priori 
to  us,  who  have  no  measure  to  guess  at  his 
policy,  or  standard  to  estimate  what  rate  those 
anile  souls  may  fetch  in  the  devil's  market. 
Nor,  when  the  wicked  are  expressly  symbol- 
ized by  a  goat,  was  it  to  be .  wondered  at  so 
much,  that  he  should  come  sometimes  in  that 
body  and  assert  his  metaphor.  That  the  inter- 
course was  opened  at  all  between  both  worlds, 
was  perhaps  the  mistake, — but  that  once  as- 
sumed, I  see  no  reason  for  disbelieving  one 
attested  story  of  this  nature  more  than  another 
on  the  score  of  absurdity.  There  is  no  law  to 
judge  of  the  lawless,  or  canon  by  which  a 
dream  may  be  criticised. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  I  could  not 
have  existed  in  the  days  of  received  witchcraft ; 
that  I  could  not  have  slept  in  a  village  where 
one  of  those  reputed  hags  dw^elt.  Our  ancestors 
were  bolder  or  more  obtuse.  Amidst  the  uni- 
versal belief  that  these  wretches  wete  in  league 
with  the  author  of  all  evil,  holding  hell  tribu- 
tary to  their  muttering,  no  simple  Justice  of  the 
Peace  seems  to  have  scrupled  issuing,  or  silly 
Headborough  serving,  a  warrant  upon  them, — 


IMitcbes,  anO  otber  Iftigbt  ^ears   139 

as  if  they  should  subpoena  Satan  !  Prospero  in 
his  boat,  with  his  books  and  wand  about  him, 
suffers  himself  to  be  conveyed  away  at  the 
mercy  of  his  enemies  to  an  unknown  island. 
He  might  have  raised  a  storm  or  two,  we  think, 
on  the  passage.  His  acquiescence  is  in  exact 
analogy  to  the  non-resistance  of  witches  to  the 
constituted  powers.  What  stops  the  Fiend  in 
Spenser  from  tearing  Guyon  to  pieces, — or  who 
had  made  it  a  condition  of  his  prey,  that  Guyon 
must  take  assay  of  the  glorious  bait, — we  have  no 
guess.  We  do  not  know  the  laws  of  that  country. 
From  my  childhood  I  was  extremely  inquisi- 
tive about  witches  and  witch-stories.  My  maid, 
and  more  legendar}-  aunt,  supplied  me  with 
good  store.  But  I  shall  mention  the  accident 
which  directed  my  curiosity  originally  into  this 
channel.  In  my  father's  book-closet,  the  "His- 
tory of  the  Bible"  by  Stackhouse  occupied  a 
distinguished  station.  The  pictures  with  which 
it  abounds — one  of  the  ark,  in  particular,  and 
another  of  Solomon's  temple,  delineated  with 
all  the  fidelity  of  ocular  admeasurement,  as  if 
the  artist  had  been  upon  the  spot — attracted 
my  childish  attention.  There  was  a  picture, 
too,  of  the  Witch  raising  up  Samuel,  which  I 
wish  that  I  had  never  seen.  We  shall  come  to 
that  hereafter.  Stackhouse  is  in  two  huge 
tomes, — and  there  was  a  pleasure  in  removing 


140  :600as0  of  ;eila 

folios  of  that  magnitude,  which,  with  infinite 
straining,  was  as  much  as  I  could  manage, 
from  the  situation  which  they  occupied  upon 
an  upper  shelf.  I  have  not  met  with  the  work 
from  that  time  to  this,  but  I  remember  it  con- 
sisted of  Old  Testament  stories,  orderly  set 
down,  with  the  objection  appended  to  each 
story,  and  the  solutio?i  of  the  objection  regu- 
larly tacked  to  that.  The  objection  was  a  sum- 
mary of  whatever  difficulties  had  been  opposed 
to  the  credibility  of  the  history,  by  the  shrewd- 
ness of  ancient  or  modern  infidelity,  drawn  up 
with  an  almost  complimentary  excess  of  can- 
dor. The  solution  was  brief,  modest,  and  satis- 
factory. The  bane  and  antidote  were  both 
before  you.  To  doubts  so  put,  and  so  quashed, 
there  seemed  to  be  an  end  forever.  The  dragon 
lay  dead,  for  the  foot  of  the  veriest  babe  to 
trample  on.  But — like  as  was  rather  feared 
than  realized  from  that  slain  monster  in  Spen- 
ser— from  the  womb  of  those  crushed  errors 
young  dragonets  would  creep,  exceeding  the 
prowess  of  so  tender  a  Saint  George  as  my- 
self to  vanquish.  The  habit  of  expecting  ob- 
jections to  every  passage,  set  me  upon  starting 
more  objections,  for  the  glory  of  finding  a  solu- 
tion of  my  own  for  them.  I  became  staggered 
and  perplexed,  a  skeptic  in  long  coats.  The 
pretty  Bible  stories  which  I  had  read,  or  heard 


XUltcbes,  anD  otber  Iftigbt  fcdxe   141 

read  in  church,  lost  their  purity  and  sin- 
cerity of  impression,  and  were  turned  into  so 
many  historic  or  chronologic  theses  to  be  de- 
fended against  whatever  impugners.  I  was  not 
to  disbelieve  them,  but — the  next  thing  to  that 
— I  was  to  be  quite  sure  that  some  one  or  other 
would  or  had  disbelieved  them.  Next  to  mak 
ing  a  child  an  infidel,  is  the  letting  him  kno^iy 
that  there  are  infidels  at  all.  Credulity  is  the 
man's  weakness,  but  the  child's  strength.  O 
how  ugly  sound  Scriptural  doubts  from  the 
mouth  of  a  babe  and  a  suckling  !  I  should 
have  lost  myself  in  these  mazes,  and  have 
pined  away,  I  think,  with  such  unfit  sustenance 
as  these  husks  afibrded,  but  for  a  fortunate 
piece  of  ill-fortune,  which  about  this  time  befell 
me.  Turning  over  the  picture  of  the  ark  with 
too  much  haste,  I  unhappily  made  a  breach  in 
its  ingenious  fabric, — driving  my  inconsiderate 
fingers  right  through  the  two  larger  quadru- 
peds— the  elephant,  and  the  camel — that  stare 
(as  well  they  might)  out  of  the  last  two  win- 
dows next  the  steerage  in  that  unique  piece  of 
naval  architecture.  Stackhouse  was  hence- 
forth locked  up,  and  became  an  interdicted 
treasure.  With  the  book,  the  objectio7is  and 
solutions  gradually  cleared  out  of  my  head,  and 
have  seldom  returned  since  in  any  force  to 
trouble    me.     But    there    was  one  impression 


142  jeasa^s  of  BKa 

which  I  had  imbibed  from  Stackhouse,  which 
no  lock  or  bar  could  shut  out,  and  which  was 
destined  to  try  my  childish  nerves  rather  more 
seriously.     That  detestable  picture  ! 

I  was  dreadfully  alive  to  nervous  terrors. 
The  nighttime,  solitude,  and  the  dark,  were  my 
hell.  The  sufferings  I  endured  in  this  nature 
would  justify  the  expression.  I  never  laid  my 
head  on  my  pillow,  I  suppose,  from  the  fourth 
to  the  seventh  or  eighth  year  of  my  life — so  far 
as  memory  serves  in  things  so  long  ago — with- 
out an  assurance,  which  realized  its  own 
prophecy,  of  seeing  some  frightful  spectre.  Be 
old  Stackhouse  then  acquitted  in  part,  if  I  say, 
that  to  his  picture  of  the  Witch  raising  up 
Samuel — (O  that  old  man  covered  with  a  man- 
tle !) — I  owe,  not  my  midnight  terrors,  the  hell 
of  my  infancy,  but  the  shape  and  manner  of 
their  ^^sitation.  It  was  he  who  dressed  up  for 
me  a  hag  that  nightly  sat  upon  my  pillow, — a 
sure  bed-fellow,  when  my  aunt  or  my  maid 
was  far  from  me.  All  day  long,  while  the  book 
was  permitted  me,  I  dreamed  waking  over  his 
delineation,  and  at  night  (if  I  may  use  so  bold 
an  expression)  awoke  into  sleep,  and  found  the 
vision  true.  I  durst  not,  even  in  the  daylight, 
once  enter  the  chamber  where  I  slept,  without 
my  face  turned  to  the  window,  aversely  from 
the    bed  where  my   witch-ridden  pillow    was. 


inaitcbes,  anb  otber  IRi^bt  ^ears   143 


Parents  do  not  know  wliat  they  do  when  they 
leave  tender  babes  alone  to  go  to  sleep  in  the 
dark.  The  feeling  about  for  a  friendly  arm — 
the  hoping  for  a  familiar  voice — ^when  they 
wake  screaming — and  find  none  to  soothe 
them, — what  a  terrible  shaking  it  is  to  their 
poor  nerves  !  The  keeping  them  up  to  mid- 
night, through  candlelight  and  the  unwhole- 
some hours,  as  they  are  called — would,  I  am 
satisfied,  in  a  medical  point  of  view,  prove  the 
better  caution.  That  detestable  picture,  as  I 
have  said,  gave  the  fashion  to  my  dreams, — if 
dreams  they  were, — for  the  scene  of  them  was 
invariably  the  room  in  which  I  lay.  Had  I  never 
met  with  the  picture,  the  fears  would  have  come 
self-pictured  in  some  shape  or  other, — 

Headless  bear,  black  man,  or  ape, — 

but,  as  it  was,  my  imaginations  took  that  form. 
It  is  not  book,  or  picture,  or  the  stories  of  fool- 
ish servants  which  create  these  terrors  in  chil- 
dren. They  can  at  most  but  give  them  a 
direction.  Dear  little  T.  H.,  who  of  all  chil- 
dren has  been  brought  up  with  the  most  scru- 
pulous exclusion  of  every  taint  of  superstition 
— who  was  never  allowed  to  hear  of  goblin  or 
apparition,  or  scarcely  to  be  told  of  bad  men, 
or  to  read  or  hear  of  any  distressing  story, — 
finds  all  this  world  of  fear,  from  which  he  has 


144  Bssage  ot  Blia 


been  so  rigidly  excluded  ab  extra,  in  his  own 
"thick-coming  fancies";  aud  from  his  little 
midnight  pillow,  this  nurse-child  of  optimism 
will  start  at  shapes,  unborrowed  of  tradition,  in 
sweats  to  which  the  reveries  of  the  cell-damned 
murderer  are  tranquillity. 

Gorgons,  and  Hydras,  and  Chimeras  dire — 
stories  of  Calaeuo  and  the  Harpies — may  repro- 
duce themselves  in  the  brain  of  superstition, — 
but  they  were  there  before.  They  are  tran- 
scripts, types, — the  archetypes  are  in  us,  and 
eternal.  How  else  should  the  recital  of  that, 
which  we  know  in  a  waking  sense  to  be  false, 
come  to  affect  us  at  all  ? — or 

Names,  whose  sense  we  see  not, 
Fray  us  with  things  that  be  not  ? 

Is  it  that  we  naturally  conceive  terror  from  such 
objects,  considered  in  their  capacity  of  being 
able  to  inflict  upon  us  bodily  injury  ?  O,  least 
of  all !  These  terrors  are  of  older  standing. 
They  date  beyond  body, — or,  without  the  body 
they  would  have  been  the  same.  All  the  cruel, 
tormenting,  defined  devils  in  Dante, — tearing, 
mangling,  choking,  stifling,  scorching  demons, 
— are  they  one  half  so  fearful  to  the  spirit  of  a 
man  as  the  simple  idea  of  a  spirit  unembodied 
following  him — 

lyike  one  that  on  a  lonesome  road 
Doth  walk  in  fear  and  dread, 


TlClitcbes,  auD  otber  IRigbt  ^fcars    145 

And  having  once  tum'd  round,  walks  on 
And  turns  no  more  his  head  ; 
Because  he  knows  a  frightful  fiend 
Doth  close  behind  him  tread.* 

That  the  kind  of  fear  here  treated  of  is  purely 
spiritual, — that  it  is  strong  in  proportion  as  it 
is  objectless  upon  earth, — that  it  predominates 
in  the  period  of  sinless  infancy, — are  difficulties 
the  solution  of  which  might  aflford  some  proba- 
ble insight  into  our  ante-mundane  condition, 
and  a  peep  at  least  into  the  shadowland  of  pre- 
existence. 

My  night  fancies  have  long  ceased  to  be  af- 
flictive. I  confess  an  occasional  nightmare  ; 
but  I  do  not,  as  in  early  youth,  keep  a  stud  of 
them.  Fiendish  faces,  with  the  extinguished 
taper,  will  come  and  look  at  me  ;  but  I  know 
them  for  mockeries,  even  while  I  cannot  elude 
their  presence,  and  I  fight  and  grapple  with 
them.  For  the  credit  of  my  imagination,  I  am 
almost  ashamed  to  say  how  tame  and  prosaic 
my  dreams  are  grown.  They  are  never  roman- 
tic, seldom  even  rural.  They  are  of  architect- 
ure and  of  buildings, — cities  abroad,  which  I 
have  never  seen  and  hardly  have  hoped  to  see. 
I  have  traversed,  for  the  seeming  length  of  a 
natural  day,  Rome,  Amsterdam,  Paris,  Lisbon 
— their    churches,    palaces,    squares,    market- 

*  Mr.  Coleridge's  "  Ancient  Mariner." 


146  Bssags  ot  jeiia 


places,  shops,  suburbs,  ruins,  with  an  inex- 
pressible sense  of  delight — a  map-like  distinct- 
ness of  trace — and  a  daylight  vividness  of  vision, 
that  was  all  but  being  awake.  I  have  formerlj' 
travelled  among  the  Westmoreland  fells,  my 
highest  Alps, — but  they  are  objects  too  mighty 
for  the  grasp  of  my  dreaming  recognition  ;  and 
I  have  again  and  again  aw^oke  with  ineffectual 
struggles  of  the  inner  eye,  to  make  out  a  shape 
in  any  way  whatever,  of  Helvellyn.  Methought  I 
was  in  that  country,  but  the  mountains  were  gone. 
The  poverty  of  my  dreams  mortifies  me.  There 
is  Coleridge,  at  his  will  can  conjure  up  icy  domes, 
and  pleasure-houses  for  KublaKhan,  and  Abys- 
sinian maids,  and  songs  of  Abara,  and  caverns. 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  runs, 

to  vSolace  his  night  solitudes, — when  I  cannot 
muster  a  fiddle.  Barry  Cornwall  has  his  tritons 
and  his  nereids  gambolling  before  him  in  noc- 
turnal visions,  and  proclaiming  sons  born  to 
Neptune, — when  my  stretch  of  imaginative 
activity  can  hardly,  in  the  night  season,  raise 
up  the  ghost  of  a  fish-wife.  To  set  mj'  failures 
in  somewhat  a  mortifying  light, — it  was  after 
reading  the  noble  Dream  of  this  poet,  that  my 
fancy  ran  strong  upon  these  marine  spectra  : 
and  the  poor  plastic  power,  such  as  it  is,  within 
me  set  to  work,  to  humor  my  folly  in  a  sort  of 


"CGlitcbes,  anD  otber  Bigbt  ^fears   147 

dream  that  very  night.  Methought  I  was  upon 
the  ocean  billows  at  some  sea  nuptials,  riding 
and  mounted  high,  with  the  customary  train 
sounding  their  conches  before  me  (I  myself,  you 
may  be  sure,  the  leading  god),  and  jollily  we 
went  careering  over  the  main,  till  just  where 
Ino  Leucothea  should  have  greeted  me  (I  think 
it  was  Ino)  with  a  white  embrace,  the  billows 
gradually  subsiding,  fell  from  a  sea-roughness 
to  a  sea-calm,  and  thence  to  a  river  motion,  and 
that  river  (as  happens  in  the  familiarization  of 
dreams)  was  no  other  than  the  gentle  Thames, 
which  landed  me  in  the  wafture  of  a  placid 
wave  or  two,  alone,  safe,  and  inglorious,  some- 
where at  the  foot  of  Lambeth  palace. 

The  degree  of  the  soul's  creativeness  in  sleep 
might  furnish  no  whimsical  criterion  of  the 
quantum  of  poetical  faculty  resident  in  the 
same  soul  waking.  An  old  gentleman,  a  friend 
of  mine,  and  a  humorist,  used  to  carry  this  no- 
tion so  far,  that  when  he  saw  any  stripling  of 
his  acquaintance  ambitious  of  becoming  a  poet, 
his  first  question  would  be:  "Young  man, 
what  sort  of  dreams  have  you?"  I  have  so 
much  faith  in  my  old  friend's  theory,  that  when 
I  feel  that  idle  vein  returning  upon  me,  I  pres- 
ently subside  into  my  proper  element  of  prose, 
remembering  those  eluding  nereids,  and  that 
inauspicious  inland  landing. 


VALENTINE'S  DAY. 

HAIIv  to  thy  returning  festival,  old  Bishop 
Valentine.  Great  is  thy  name  in  the  ru- 
bric, thou  venerable  Archflamen  of  Hymen  ! 
Immortal  Go-between  ;  who  and  what  manner 
of  person  art  thou  ?  Art  thou  but  a  name,  typi- 
fying the  restless  principle  which  impels  poor 
humans  to  seek  perfection  in  union  ?  or  wert 
thou  indeed  a  mortal  prelate,  with  thy  tippit 
and  the  rochet,  thy  apron  on,  and  decent  lawn 
sleeves?  Mysterious  personage !  like  unto  thee, 
assuredly,  there  is  no  other  mitred  father  in  the 
calendar  ;  not  Jerome,  nor  Ambrose,  nor  Cyril ; 
nor  the  consigner  of  undipt  infants  to  eternal 
torments,  Austin,  whom  all  mothers  hate  ;  nor 
he  who  hated  all  mothers,  Origen  ;  nor  Bishop 
Bull,  nor  Archbishop  Parker,  nor  Whitgift. 
Thou  comest  attended  with  thousands  and  ten 
thousands  of  little  Loves,  and  the  air  is 

Brush 'd  with  the  hiss  of  rustling  wings. 

Singing  Cupids  are  thy  choristers  and  thy  pre- 


Dalentlne'6  Bag  149 

centers  ;  and  instead  of  the  crosier,  the  mysti- 
cal arrow  is  borne  before  thee. 

In  other  words,  this  is  the  day  on  which  those 
charming  Uttle  missives,  ycleped  Valentines, 
cross  and  inter-cross  each  other  at  every  street 
and  tmrning.  The  wear^^  and  all  forespent  two- 
penny postman  sinks  beneath  a  load  of  delicate 
embarrassments,  not  his  own.  It  is  scarcely 
credible  to  what  an  extent  this  ephemeral  court- 
ship is  carried  on  in  this  loving  town,  to  the 
great  enrichment  of  porters,  and  detriment  of 
knockers  and  bell-wnres.  In  these  little  visual 
interpretations,  no  emblem  is  so  common  as  the 
heart — that  little  three-cornered  exponent  of  all 
our  hopes  and  fears, — the  bestuck  and  bleeding 
heart ;  it  is  twisted  and  tortured  into  more  alle- 
gories and  ajSfectations  than  an  opera-hat.  What 
authority  we  have  in  history  or  mythology  for 
placing  the  head-quarters  and  metropolis  of  God 
Cupid  in  this  anatomical  seat  rather  than  in  any 
other,  is  not  very  clear ;  but  we  have  got  it,  and 
it  will  serve  as  well  as  any  other.  Else  we  might 
easily  imagine,  upon  some  other  system  which 
might  have  prevailed  for  any  thing  which  our 
pathology  know^s  to  the  contrar>^,  a  lover  ad- 
dressing -his  mistress,  in  perfect  simplicity  of 
feeling:  "Madam,  my  liver  and  fortune  are 
entirely  at  your  disposal"  ;  or  putting  a  deli- 
cate question  :     "  Amanda,  have  you  a  midriff 


I50  JCseai^s  of  }El(a 


to  bestow?"  But  custom  has  settled  these 
things,  and  awarded  the  seat  of  sentiment  to 
the  aforesaid  triangle,  while  its  less  fortunate 
neighbors  wait  at  animal  and  anatomical  dis- 
tance. 

Not  many  sounds  in  life,  and  I  include  all 
urban  and  all  rural  sounds,  exceed  in  interest  a 
knock  at  the  door.  It  "  gives  a  very  echo  to  the 
throne  where  Hope  is  seated."  But  its  issues 
seldom  answer  to  this  oracle  within.  It  is  so 
seldom  that  just  the  person  we  want  to  see 
comes.  But  of  all  the  clamorous  visitations  the 
welcomest  in  expectation  is  the  sound  that 
ushers  in,  or  seems  to  usher  in,  a  Valentine. 
As  the  raven  himself  was  hoarse  that  announced 
the  fatal  entrance  of  Duncan,  so  the  knock  of 
the  postman  on  this  day  is  light,  airy,  confi- 
dent, and  befitting  one  that  bringeth  good 
tidings.  It  is  less  mechanical  than  on  other 
days.  You  will  say :  ' '  That  is  not  the  post,  I 
am  sure."  Visions  of  Love,  of  Cupids,  of 
Hymens  ! — delightful  eternal  commonplaces, 
which  "having  been  will  always  be"  ;  which 
no  schoolboy  nor  schoolman  can  write  away  ; 
having  your  irreversible  throne  in  the  fancy 
and  affections, — what  are  your  transports  when 
the  happy  maiden,  opening  with  careful  finger, 
careful  not  to  break  the  emblematic  seal,  bursts 
upon  the  sight  of  some  well-designed  allegory, 


Dalentine*6  2)as  151 

some  type,  some  youthful  fancy,  not  without 

verses — 

Ivovers  all, 
A  madrigal, 

or  some  such  device  not  over  abundant  in  sense, 
— young  love  disclaims  it, — and  not  quite  silly, 
— something  between  wind  and  water,  a  chorus 
where  the  sheep  might  almost  join  the  shep- 
herd, as  they  did,  or  as  I  apprehend  they  did, 
in  Arcadia. 

All  Valentines  are  not  foolish,  and  I  shall  not 
easily  forget  thine,  my  kind  friend  (if  I  may 
have  leave  to  call  you  so)  H.  B.  B.  B.  lived  op- 
posite a  young   maiden   whom   he   had    often 

seen,  unseen,  from  his  parlor  window  in  C e 

Street.  She  was  all  joyousness  and  innocence, 
and  just  of  an  age  to  enjoy  receiving  a  Valen- 
tine, and  just  of  a  temper  to  bear  the  disap- 
pointment of  missing  one  with  good-humor. 
E.  B.  is  an  artist  of  no  common  powers  ;  in  the 
fancy  parts  of  designing,  perhaps  inferior  to 
none  ;  his  name  is  known  at  the  bottom  of 
many  a  well-executed  vignette  in  the  way  of 
his  profession,  but  no  further ;  for  E.  B.  is 
modest,  and  the  world  meets  nobody  half-way. 
E.  B.  meditated  how  he  could  repay  this  young 
maiden  for  many  a  favor  which  she  had  done 
him  unknown  ;  for  when  a  kindly  face  greets 
us,  though  but  passing  by,  and  never  knows  us 


152  :E6sa^6  ot  iBlia 

again,  nor  we  it,  we  should  feel  it  as  an  obliga- 
tion ;  and  E.  B.  did.  This  good  artist  set  him- 
self at  work  to  please  the  damsel.  It  was  just 
before  Valentine's  Day,  three  years  since.  He 
wrought,  unseen  and  unsuspected,  a  wondrous 
work.  We  need  not  say  it  was  on  the  finest 
gilt  paper  with  borders, — full,  not  of  common 
hearts  and  heartless  allegory,  but  all  the  pret- 
tiest stories  of  love  from  Ovid,  and  older  poets 
than  Ovid  (for  E.  B.  is  a  scholar).  There  was 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  and  be  sure  Dido  was  not 
forgot,  nor  Hero  and  Leander,  and  swans  more 
than  sang  in  Cayster,  with  mottoes  and  fanciful 
devices  such  as  beseemed — a  work,  in  short,  of 
magic.  Iris  dipt  the  woof.  This  on  Valentine's 
eve  he  commended  to  the  all-swallowing  in- 
discriminate orifice  (O  ignoble  trust !)  of  the 
common  post ;  but  the  humble  medium  did  its 
duty,  and  from  his  watchful  stand,  the  next 
morning,  he  saw  the  cheerful  messenger  knock, 
and  by  and  by  the  precious  charge  delivered. 
He  saw,  unseen,  the  happy  girl  unfold  the  Val- 
entine, dance  about,  clap  her  hands,  as  one 
after  one  the  pretty  emblems  unfolded  them- 
selves. She  danced  about,  not  with  light  love 
or  foolish  expectations,  for  she  had  no  lover ; 
or,  if  she  had,  none  she  knew  that  could 
have  created  those  bright  images  which  de- 
lighted her.     It  was  more  like  some  fairy  pres- 


tDatcntinc'6  Da^  153 


ent,  a  Godsend,  as  our  familiarly  pious  ances- 
tors termed  a  benefit  received  where  the  bene- 
factor was  unknown.  It  would  do  her  no 
harm.  It  would  do  her  good  forever  after.  It 
is  good  to  love  the  unknown.  I  only  give  this 
as  a  specimen  of  E.  B.  and  his  modest  way  of 
doing  a  concealed  kindness. 

Good-morrow  to  my  Valentine,  sings  poor 
Ophelia,  and  no  better  w4sh,  but  with  better 
auspices,  we  wish  to  all  faithful  lovers  who  are 
too  wise  to  despise  old  legends,  but  are  content 
to  rank  themselves  humble  diocesans  of  old 
Bishop  Valentine  and  his  true  church. 


MY  RELATIONS. 

I  AM  arrived  at  that  point  of  life  at  whicli  a 
man  may  account  it  a  blessing,  as  it  is  a 
singularity,  if  he  have  either  of  his  parents  sur- 
viving. I  have  not  that  felicity — and  some- 
times think  feelingly  of  a  passage  in  Browne's 
"  Christian  Morals,"  where  he  speaks  of  a  man 
that  hath  lived  sixty  or  seventy  years  in  the 
world.  "  In  such  a  compass  of  time,"  he  says, 
'*  a  man  may  have  a  close  apprehension  what  it  is 
to  be  forgotten  when  he  hath  lived  to  find  none 
who  could  remember  his  father,  or  scarcely  the 
friends  of  his  youth,  and  may  sensibly  see  with 
what  a  face  in  no  longer  time  Oblivion  will 
look  upon  himself" 

I  had  an  aunt,  a  dear  and  good  one.  She 
was  one  whom  single-blessedness  had  soured  to 
the  world.  She  often  used  to  say  that  I  was  the 
only  thing  in  it  which  she  loved,  and  when  she 
thought  I  was  quitting  it  she  grieved  over  me 
with  a  mother's  tears.  A  partiality  quite  so  ex- 
clusive my  reason  cannot  altogether  approve. 
She  was  from  morning  till  night  poring  over 


Ifb^  IRelations  155 

good  books  and  devotional  exercises.  Her 
favorite  volumes  were  "Thomas  a  Kempis,"  in 
Stanhope's  translation,  and  a  Roman  Catholic 
Prayer-Book,  with  the  matins  and  complines 
regularly  set  dowm, — terms  which  I  was  at  that 
time  too  young  to  understand.  She  persisted  in 
reading  them,  although  admonished  daily  con- 
cerning their  Papistical  tendency,  and  went  to 
church  every  Sabbath,  as  a  good  Protestant 
should  do.  These  were  the  only  books  she 
studied,  though  I  think  at  one  period  of  her 
life  she  told  me  she  had  read,  with  great  satis- 
faction, the  "Adventures  of  an  Unfortunate 
Young  Nobleman."  Finding  the  door  of  the 
chapel  in  Essex  Street  open  one  day, — it  was 
in  the  infancy  of  that  heresy, — she  w^ent  in, 
liked  the  sermon  and  the  manner  of  worship, 
and  frequented  it  at  intervals  for  some  time 
after.  She  came  not  for  doctrinal  points, 
and  never  missed  them.  With  some  little 
asperities  in  her  constitution,  which  I  have 
above  hinted  at,  she  was  a  steadfast,  friendly 
being,  and  a  fine  old  Christian.  She  was 
a  woman  of  strong  sense,  and  a  shrewd  mind — 
extraordinary  at  a  repartke,  one  of  the  few  oc- 
casions of  her  breaking  silence — else  she  did 
not  much  value  wit.  The  only  secular  employ- 
ment I  remember  to  have  seen  her  engaged  in 
was  the  splitting  of  French  beans,  and  drop- 


156  B60ag0  ot  Blfa 

ping  them  into  a  china  basin  of  fair  water.  The 
odor  of  those  tender  vegetables  to  this  day 
comes  back  upon  my  sense,  redolent  of  soothing 
recollections.  Certainly  it  is  the  most  delicate 
of  culinary  operations. 

Male  aunts,  as  somebody  calls  them,  I  had 
none — to  remember.  By  the  uncle's  side  I  may 
be  said  to  have  been  bom  an  orphan.  Brother 
or  sister  I  never  had  any — to  know  them.  A 
sister,  I  think,  that  should  have  been  Elizabeth, 
died  in  both  our  infancies.  What  a  comfort,  or 
what  a  care,  may  I  not  have  missed  in  her ! 
But  I  have  cousins  sprinkled  about  in  Hert- 
fordshire, —  besides  two,  with  whom  I  have 
been  all  my  life  in  habits  of  the  closest  intimacy, 
and  whom  I  may  term  cousins  par  excellence. 
These  are  James  and  Bridget  Elia.  They  are 
older  than  myself  by  twelve,  and  ten  years ;  and 
neither  of  them  seem  disposed,  in  matters  of 
advice  and  guidance,  to  waive  any  of  the  pre- 
rogatives which  primogeniture  confers.  May 
they  continue  still  in  the  same  mind  ;  and  when 
they  shall  be  seventy-five,  and  seventy-three 
years  old  (I  cannot  spare  them  sooner),  persist 
in  treating  me  in  my  grand  climateric  precisely 
as  a  stripling,  or  younger  brother  ! 

James  is  an  inexplicable  cousin.  Nature  hath 
her  unities,  which  not  every  critic  can  penetrate, 
or,  if  we  feel,  we  cannot  explain  them.     The 


/BbS  IRelations  157 

pen  of  Yorick,  and  of  none  since  his,  could  have 
drawn  J.  B.  entire, — those  fine  Shandean  lights 
and  shades,  which  make  up  his  story.  I  must 
limp  after  in  my  poor  antithetical  manner,  as 
the  fates  have  given  me  grace  and  talent.  J.  E. 
then — to  the  eye  of  a  common  observer  at  least 
— seemeth  made  up  of  contradictory-  principles. 
The  genuine  child  of  impulse,  the  frigid  philoso- 
pher of  prudence — the  phlegm  of  my  cousin's 
doctrine  is  invariably  at  war  with  his  tempera- 
ment, which  is  high  sanguine.  With  always 
some  fire-new  project  in  his  brain,  J,  E.  is  the 
systematic  opponent  of  innovation,  and  crier 
down  of  every  thing  that  has  not  stood  the  test 
of  age  and  experiment.  With  a  hundred  fine 
notions  chasing  one  another  hourly  in  his  fancy, 
he  is  startled  at  the  least  approach  to  the  ro- 
mantic in  others  ;  and,  determined  by  his  own 
sense  in  everything,  commends  jj/<9z^  to  the  guid- 
ance of  common-sense  on  all  occasions.  With 
a  touch  of  the  eccentric  in  all  which  he  does,  or 
says,  he  is  only  anxious  that  you  should  not 
commit  yourself  by  doing  any  thing  absurd  or 
singular.  On  my  once  letting  slip  at  table  that 
I  was  not  fond  of  a  certain  popular  dish,  he 
begged  me  at  any  rate  not  to  say  so — for  the 
world  would  think  me  mad.  He  disguises  a 
passionate  fondness  for  works  of  high  art 
(whereof  he  hath  amassed  a  choice  collection). 


158  iBeea^e  ot  Blia 

under  the  pretext  of  buying  only  to  sell  again — 
that  his  enthusiasm  may  give  no  encourage- 
ment to  yours.  Yet,  if  it  were  so,  why  does 
that  piece  of  tender,  pastoral  Domenichino  hang 
still  by  his  wall  ? — is  the  ball  of  his  sight  much 
more  dear  to  him  ?  or  what  picture-dealer  can 
talk  like  him  ? 

Whereas  mankind  in  general  are  observed  to 
warp  their  speculative  conclusions  to  the  bent 
of  their  individual  humors,  Ms  theories  are  sure 
to  be  in  diametrical  opposition  to  his  constitu- 
tion. He  is  courageous  as  Charles  of  Sweden, 
upon  instinct ;  chary  of  his  person  upon  prin- 
ciple, as  a  travelling  Quaker.  He  has  been 
preaching  up  to  me,  all  my  life,  the  doctrine  of 
bowing  to  the  great — the  necessity  of  forms, 
and  manner,  to  a  man's  getting  on  in  the  world. 
He  himself  never  aims  at  either,  that  I  can  dis- 
cover,— and  has  a  spirit  that  would  stand  up- 
right in  the  presence  of  the  Cham  of  Tartary. 
It  is  pleasant  to  hear  him  discourse  of  patience 
— extolling  it  as  the  truest  wisdom, — and  to  see 
him  during  the  last  seven  minutes  that  his  din- 
ner is  getting  read3^  Nature  never  ran  up  in  her 
haste  a  more  restless  piece  of  workmanship  than 
when  she  moulded  this  impetuous  cousin, — and 
Art  never  turned  out  a  more  elaborate  orator 
than  he  can  display  himself  to  be,  upon  this 
favorite  topic  of  the  advantages  of  quiet  and 


/Rg  IRelations  159 

contentedness  in  the  state,  whatever  it  be,  that 
we  are  placed  in.  He  is  triumphant  on  this 
theme,  when  he  has  you  safe  in  one  of  those 
short  stages  that  ply  for  the  western  road,  in  a 
very  obstructing  manner,  at  the  foot  of  John 
Murray's  street, — where  you  get  in  when  it  is 
empty,  and  are  expected  to  wait  till  the  vehicle 
hath  completed  her  just  freight, — a  trying  three 
quarters  of  an  hour  to  some  people.  He  won- 
ders at  your  fidgetiness, — "where  could  we  be 
better  than  we  are,  thus  sitting,  thus  consult- 
ing f'' — "  prefers,  for  his  part,  a  state  of  rest  to 
locomotion," — with  an  eye  all  the  while  upon 
the  coachman, — till  at  length,  waxing  out  of 
all  patience,  at  your  cuant  of  it,  he  breaks  out 
into  a  pathetic  remonstrance  at  the  fellow  for 
detaining  us  so  long  over  the  time  which  he  had 
professed,  and  declares  peremptorily,  that  "the 
gentleman  in  the  coach  is  determined  to  get 
out,  if  he  does  not  drive  on  that  instant. ' ' 

Very  quick  at  inventing  an  argument,  or  de- 
tecting a  sophistry,  he  is  incapable  of  attending 
yo2i  in  any  chain  of  arguing.  Indeed,  he  makes 
wild  work  with  logic  ;  and  seems  to  jump  at 
most  admirable  conclusions  by  some  process, 
not  at  all  akin  to  it.  Consonantly  enough  to 
this,  he  hath  been  heard  to  deny,  upon  certain 
occasions,  that  there  exists  such  a  faculty  at  all 
in  man   as  reason  ;  and  wondereth   how  man 


i6o  Bssa^s  ot  J? Ita 


came  first  to  have  a  conceit  of  it, — enforcing  his 
negation  with  all  the  might  of  7'easoning  he  is 
master  of  He  has  some  speculative  notions 
against  laughter,  and  will  maintain  that  laugh- 
ing is  not  natural  to  him, — when  peradventure 
the  next  moment  his  lungs  shall  crow  like 
Chanticleer.  He  says  some  of  the  best  things 
in  the  world — and  declareth  that  wit  is  his  aver- 
sion. It  was  he  who  said,  upon  seeing  the  Eton 
boys  at  play  in  their  grounds, —  What  a  pity  to 
think,  that  these  fine  ingenuous  lads  in  a  few 
years  will  all  be  changed  into  frivolous  Mem- 
bers of  Parliament ! 

His  youth  was  fiery,  glowing,  tempestuous, — 
and  in  age  he  discovereth  no  symptom  of  cool- 
ing. This  is  that  which  I  admire  in  him.  I 
hate  people  who  meet  Time  half-way.  I  am  for 
no  compromise  with  that  inevitable  spoiler. 
While  he  lives,  J.  E.  will  take  his  swing.  It  does 
me  good,  as  I  walk  towards  the  street  of  my  daily 
avocation,  on  some  fine  May  morning,  to  meet 
him  marching  in  a  quite  opposite  direction, 
with  a  jolly  handsome  presence,  and  shining 
sanguine  face  that  indicates  some  purchase  in 
his  eye — a  Claude — or  a  Hobbima — for  much  of 
his  en\dable  leisure  is  consumed  at  Christie's 
and  Phillips' — or  where  not,  to  pick  up  pic- 
tures, and  such  gauds.  On  these  occasions  he 
mostly  stoppeth  me,  to  read  a  short  lecture  on 


/Ifcg  IRelations  i6i 

the  advantages  a  person  like  me  possesses  above 
himself  in  ha^dng  his  time  occupied  with  busi- 
ness which  he  must  do, — assureth  me  that  he 
often  feels  it  hangs  heavy  on  his  hands — wishes 
he  had  fewer  holidays — and  goes  off — Westward 
Ho  ! — chanting  a  tune,  to  Pall  Mall, — perfectly 
convinced  that  he  has  con\4nced  me, — while  I 
proceed  in  my  opposite  direction,  tuneless. 

It  is  pleasant  again  to  see  this  Professor  of 
Indifference  doing  the  honors  of  his  new  pur- 
chase, when  he  has  fairly  housed  it.  You  must 
view  it  in  ever>-  light,  till  he  has  found  the  best 
— placing  it  at  this  distance,  and  at  that,  but 
always  suiting  the  focus  of  your  sight  to  his 
own.  You  must  spy  at  it  through  your  fingers, 
to  catch  the  aerial  perspective, — though  you  as- 
sure him  that  to  you  the  landscape  shows  much 
more  agreeable  without  that  artifice.  Woe  be 
to  the  luckless  wight,  who  does  not  only  not 
respond  to  his  rapture,  but  who  should  drop  an 
unseasonable  intimation  of  preferring  one  of 
his  anterior  bargains  to  the  present ! — The  last 
is  always  his  best  hit — his  "Cynthia  of  the 
minute."  Alas  !  how  many  a  mild  Madonna 
have  I  known  to  come  in — a  Raphael  ! — keep  its 
ascendancy  for  a  few  brief  moons, — then,  after 
certain  intermedial  degradations,  from  the  front 
drawing-room  to  the  back  gallery',  thence  to  the 
dark  parlor, — adopted  in  turn  by  each   of  the 


i62  jEssai^s  ot  Slia 

Carracci,  under  successive  lowering  ascriptions 
of  filiation,  mildly  breaking  its  fall,— consigned 
to  the  obli\4ous  lumber-room,  go  out  at  last  a 
Lucca  Giordano,  or  plain  Carlo  Maratti ! — 
which  things  when  I  beheld — musing  upon  the 
chances  and  mutabilities  of  fate  below,  hath 
made  me  to  reflect  upon  the  altered  condition 
of  great  personages,  or  that  woful  Queen  of 
Richard  the  Second — 


set  forth  in  pomp 


She  came  adorned  hither  liks  sweet  May, 
Sent  back  like  Hallowmas  or  shortest  day. 

With  great  love  for  you,  J.  E.  hath  but  a  lim- 
ited symyathy  with  what  you  feel  or  do.  He 
lives  in  a  world  of  his  own,  and  makes  slender 
guesses  at  what  passes  in  your  mind.  He  never 
pierces  the  marrow  of  your  habits.  He  will  tell 
an  old  established  play-goer,  that  Mr.  Such-a- 
one,  of  So-and-so  (naming  one  of  the  theatres), 
is  a  very  lively  comedian — as  a  piece  of  news  ! 
He  advertised  me  but  the  other  day  of  some 
pleasant  green  lanes  which  he  had  found  out 
for  me,  knowing  me  to  be  a  great  walker,  in 
my  own  immediate  vicinity — who  have  haunted 
the  identical  spot  any  time  these  twenty  years  ! 
He  has  not  much  respect  for  that  class  of  feel- 
ings which  goes  by  the  name  of  sentimen- 
tal.    He  applies  the  definition  of  real  evil  to 


/IRS  IRelatlons  163 

bodily  sufferings  exclusively — and  rejecteth  all 
others  as  imaginary.  He  is  affected  by  the  sight, 
or  the  bare  supposition,  of  a  creature  in  pain,  to 
a  degree  which  I  have  never  witnessed  out  of 
womankind.  A  constitutional  acuteness  to  this 
class  of  suffering  may  in  part  account  for  this. 
The  animal  tribe  in  particular  he  taketh  under 
his  especial  protection,  A  broken-winded  or 
spur-galled  horse  is  sure  to  find  an  advocate  in 
him.  An  overloaded  ass  is  his  client  forever. 
He  is  the  apostle  to  the  brute  kind — the  never- 
failing  friend  of  those  who  have  none  to  care  for 
them.  The  contemplation  of  a  lobster  boiled, 
or  eels  skinned  alive,  will  wring  him  so,  "  all  for 
pity  he  could  die. "  It  will  take  the  savor  from 
his  palate,  and  the  rest  from  his  pillow  for  days 
and  nights.  With  the  intense  feeling  of  Thomas 
Clarkson,  he  wanted  only  the  steadiness  of  pur- 
suit, and  unity  of  purpose,  of  that  "true  yoke- 
fellow with  Time,"  to  have  effected  as  much  for 
the  Animal,  as  he  hath  done  for  the  Negro 
Crealion.  But  my  uncontrollable  cousin  is  but 
imperfectly  formed  for  purposes  which  demand 
cooperation.  He  cannot  wait.  His  ameliora- 
tion plans  must  be  ripened  in  a  day.  For  this 
reason  he  has  cut  but  an  equivocal  figure  in  be- 
nevolent societies,  and  combinations  for  the 
alleviation  of  human  sufferings.  His  zeal  con- 
stantly makes  him  to  outrun,  and  put  out,  his 


164  Bssa^s  ot  Blla 


coadjutors.  He  thinks  of  relieving, — while  they 
think  of  debating.  He  was  blackballed  out  of 
a  society  for  the  Relief  of  .  .  .  because  the 
fervor  of  his  humanity  toiled  beyond  the  formal 
apprehension,  and  creeping  processes  of  his 
associates.  I  shall  always  consider  this  dis- 
tinction as  a  patent  of  nobility  in  the  Elia 
family  ! 

Do  I  mention  these  seeming  inconsistencies 
to  smile  at,  or  upbraid  my  unique  cousin  ! 
Marry,  heaven,  and  all  good  manners,  and  the 
understanding  that  should  be  between  kins- 
folk, forbid !  With  all  the  strangeness  of  this 
stra7igest  of  the  Elias — I  would  not  have  him  in 
one  jot  or  tittle  other  than  he  is  ;  neither  would 
I  barter  or  exchange  my  wild  kinsman  for  the 
most  exact,  regular,  and  every  way  consistent 
kinsman  breathing. 

In  my  next,  reader,  I  may  perhaps  give  you 
some  account  of  my  cousin  Bridget, — if  you  are 
not  already  surfeited  with  cousins — and  take 
you  by  the  hand,  if  you  are  willing  to  go  with 
us,  on  an  excursion  which  we  made  a  summer 
or  two  since,  in  search  of  more  cousins, 

Through  the  green  plains  of  pleasant  Hertfordshire. 


MACKERY   END,    IN    HERTFORDSHIRE. 


BRIDGET  ELIA  has  been  my  housekeeper 
for  many  a  long  year.  I  have  obligations 
to  Bridget,  extending  beyond  the  period  of 
memorj'.  We  housed  together,  old  bachelor 
and  maid,  in  a  sort  of  double  singleness  ;  with 
such  tolerable  comfort,  upon  the  whole,  that  I, 
for  one,  find  in  myself  no  sort  of  disposition  to 
go  out  upon  the  mountains,  with  the  rash  king's 
offspring,  to  bewail  my  celibacy.  We  agree 
pretty  well  in  our  tastes  and  habits — yet  so,  as 
"with  a  difference."  We  are  generally  in  har- 
mony, with  occasional  bickerings — as  it  should 
be  among  near  relations.  Our  sympathies  are 
rather  understood  than  expressed  ;  and  once, 
upon  my  dissembling  a  tone  in  my  voice  more 
kindly  than  ordinary,  my  cousin  burst  into 
tears,  and  complained  that  I  was  altered.  We 
are  both  great  readers  in  different  directions. 
While  I  am  hanging  over  (for  the  thousandth 
time)  some  passage  in  old  Burton,  or  one  of 
his  strange  contemporaries,  she  is  abstracted  in 
some  modern  tale,  or  adventure,  whereof  our 


i66  jEssa^s  ot  ;eiia 

common  reading-table  is  daily  fed  with  assidu- 
ously fresh  supplies.  Narrative  teases  me.  I 
have  little  concern  in  the  progress  of  events. 
She  must  have  a  story — well,  ill,  or  indifferently 
told — so  there  be  life  stirring  in  it,  and  plenty 
of  good  or  evil  accidents.  The  fluctuations  of 
fortune  in  fiction — and  almost  in  real  life — have 
ceased  to  interest,  or  operate  but  dully  upon 
me.  Out-of-the-way  humors  and  opinions — 
heads  with  some  diverting  twist  in  them — the 
oddities  of  authorship  please  me  most.  My 
cousin  has  a  native  disrelish  of  any  thing  that 
sounds  odd  or  bizarre.  Nothing  goes  down 
with  her  that  is  quaint,  irregular,  or  out  of  the 
road  of  common  sympathy.  She  "  holds  nature 
is  more  clever,"  I  can  pardon  her  blindness 
to  the  beautiful  obliquities  of  the  "  Religio 
Medici,"  but  she  must  apologize  to  me  for  cer- 
tain disrespectful  insinuations,  which  she  has 
been  pleased  to  throw  out  latterly,  touching  the 
intellectuals  of  a  dear  favorite  of  mine,  of  the 
last  century  but  one, — the  thrice  noble,  chaste, 
and  virtuous,  but  again  somewhat  fantastical, 
and  original-brained,  generous  Margaret  New- 
castle. 

It  has  been  the  lot  of  my  cousin,  oftener  per- 
haps than  I  could  have  wished,  to  have  had  for 
her  associates  and  mine,  free-thinkers, — leaders 
and  disciples  of  novel  philosophies  and  sys- 


/Iftac??crs  lenC),  in  Iberttor^sblre     167 

terns ;  but  she  neither  wrangles  with,  nor  ac- 
cepts their  opinions.  That  which  was  good  and 
venerable  to  her,  when  a  child,  retains  its  au- 
thority over  her  mind  still.  She  never  juggles 
or  plays  tricks  with  her  understanding. 

We  are  both  of  us  inclined  to  be  a  little  too 
positive ;  and  I  have  observed  the  results  of  our 
disputes  to  be  almost  uniformly  this, — that  in 
matters  of  fact,  dates,  and  circumstances  it 
turns  out  that  I  was  in  the  right,  and  my  cousin 
in  the  wrong.  But  where  we  have  differed  upon 
moral  points  ;  upon  some  things  proper  to  be 
done,  or  let  alone ;  whatever  heat  of  opposition, 
or  steadiness  of  con\nction  I  set  out  with,  I  am 
sure  always,  in  the  long  run,  to  be  brought  over 
to  her  way  of  thinking. 

I  must  touch  upon  the  foibles  of  my  kins- 
woman with  a  gentle  hand,  for  Bridget  does  not 
like  to  be  told  of  her  faults.  She  hath  an  awk- 
ward trick  (to  say  no  worse  of  it)  of  reading  in 
company  ;  at  which  times  she  will  answer  yes 
or  no  to  a  question,  without  fully  understanding 
its  purport, — which  is  provoking,  and  deroga- 
tory in  the  highest  degree  to  the  dignity  of  the 
putter  of  the  said  question.  Her  presence  of 
mind  is  equal  to  the  most  pressing  trials  of  life, 
but  will  sometimes  desert  her  upon  trifling  oc- 
casions. When  the  purpose  requires  it,  and  is 
a  thing  of  moment,  she  can  speak  to  it  greatly  ; 


i68  :i£66a\)6  of  ;EIta 


but  in  matters  which  are  not  stuflF  of  the  con- 
science, she  hath  been  known  sometimes  to  let 
slip  a  word  less  seasonably. 

Her  education  in  youth  was  not  much  attend- 
ed to,  and  she  happily  missed  all  that  train  of 
female  garniture  which  passeth  by  the  name  of 
accomplishments.  She  was  tumbled  early,  by 
accident  or  design,  into  a  spacious  closet  of 
good  old  English  reading,  without  much  selec- 
tion or  prohibition,  and  browsed  at  will  upon 
that  fair  and  wholesome  pasturage.  Had  I 
twenty  girls,  they  should  be  brought  up  exactly 
in  this  fashion.  I  know  not  whether  their 
chance  in  wedlock  might  not  be  diminished  by 
it,  but  I  can  answer  for  it  that  it  makes  (if  the 
worst  comes  to  the  worst)  most  incomparable 
old  maids. 

In  a  season  of  distress  she  is  the  truest  com- 
forter, but  in  the  teasing  accidents  and  minor 
perplexities,  which  do  not  call  out  the  will  to 
meet  them,  she  sometimes  maketh  matters 
worse  by  an  excess  of  participation.  If  she 
does  not  always  divide  your  trouble,  upon  the 
pleasanter  occasions  of  life  she  is  sure  always  to 
treble  your  satisfaction.  She  is  excellent  to  be 
at  a  play  with  or  upon  a  visit,  but  best  when  she 
goes  a  journey  with  you. 

We  made  an  excursion  together  a  few  sum- 
mers since  into  Hertfordshire,  to  beat  up  the 


/Rbacker^  BnD,  in  "IberttorDsbtre     169 

quarters  of  some  of  our  less-known  relations  in 
that  fine  com  country. 

The  oldest  thing  I  remember  is  Mackery  End, 
or  Mackarel  End,  as  it  is  spelt,  perhaps  more 
properly,  in  some  old  maps  of  Hertfordshire  ; 
a  farm-house, — delightfully  situated  within  a 
gentle  walk  from  Wheathampstead,  I  can  just 
remember  having  been  there  on  a  visit  to  a 
great-aunt,  when  I  was  child,  under  the  care  of 
Bridget,  who,  as  I  have  said,  is  older  than  my- 
self by  some  ten  years.  I  wish  that  I  could 
throw  into  a  heap  the  remainder  of  our  joint 
existences,  that  we  might  share  them  in  equal 
di\4sion.  But  that  is  impossible.  The  house 
was  at  that  time  in  the  occupation  of  a  substan- 
tial yeoman,  who  had  married  my  grandmother's 
sister.  His  name  was  Gladman.  My  grand- 
mother was  a  Bruton,  married  to  a  Field.  The 
Gladmans  and  the  Brutons  are  still  flourishing 
in  that  part  of  the  country,  but  the  Fields  are 
almost  extinct.  More  than  forty  years  have 
elapsed  since  the  visit  I  speak  of;  and  for  the 
greater  portion  of  that  period  we  have  lost  sight 
of  the  other  two  branches  also.  Who  or  what 
sort  of  persons  inherited  Mackery  End — kin- 
dred or  strange  folk — we  were  afraid  almost  to 
conjecture,  but  determined  some  day  to  explore. 

By  somewhat  a  circuitous  route,  taking  the 
noble  park  at  Luton  in  our  way  from  Saint  Al- 


Bssa^B  ot  JElla 


bans,  we  arrived  at  the  spot  of  our  anxious 
curiosity  about  noon.  The  sight  of  the  old  farm- 
house, though  every  trace  of  it  was  effaced  from 
my  recollection,  affected  me  with  a  pleasure 
which  I  had  not  experienced  for  many  a  year. 
For  though  /  had  forgotten  it,  we  had  never 
forgotten  being  there  together,  and  we  had  been 
talking  about  Mackery  End  all  our  lives,  till 
memory  on  my  part  became  mocked  with  a 
phantom  of  itself,  and  I  thought  I  knew  the 
aspect  of  a  place,  which,  when  present,  O  how 
unlike  it  was  to  l/iat  which  I  had  conjured  up 
so  many  times  instead  of  it ! 

Still  the  air  breathed  balmily  about  it ;  the 
season  was  in  the  "  heart  of  June  "  and  I  could 
say  with  the  poet : 

But  thou  that  didst  appear  so  fair 

To  fond  imagination  ; 
Dost  rival  in  the  light  of  day 

Her  delicate  creation  ! 

Bridget's  was  more  a  waking  bliss  than  mine, 
for  she  easily  remembered  her  old  acquaintance 
again, — some  altered  features,  of  course,  a  little 
grudged  at.  At  first,  indeed,  she  was  ready 
to  disbelieve  for  joy  ;  but  the  scene  soon  re- 
confirmed itself  in  her  affections, — and  she 
traversed  every  outpost  of  the  old  mansion,  to 
the  wood-house,  the  orchard,  the  place  where 


Abacherg  BnD,  In  IbcrttorDsbirc     171 


the  pigeon-house  had  stood  (house  and  birds 
■were  alike  flown) — with  a  breathless  impatience 
of  recognition,  which  was  more -pardonable  per- 
haps than  decorous  at  the  age  of  fifty  odd.  But 
Bridget  in  some  things  is  behind  her  years. 

The  only  thing  left  was  to  get  into  the  house, 
— and  that  was  a  difficulty  which  to  me  singly 
would  have  been  insurmountable  ;  for  I  am  ter- 
ribly shy  in  making  myself  known  to  strangers 
and  out-of-date  kinsfolk.  Love,  stronger  than 
scruple,  winged  my  cousin  in  without  me  ;  but 
she  soon  returned  with  a  creature  that  might 
have  sat  to  a  sculptor  for  the  image  of  Welcome. 
It  was  the  youngest  of  the  Gladmans  ;  who,  by 
marriage  with  a  Brutou,  had  become  mistress  of 
the  old  mansion.  A  comely  brood  are  the  Bru- 
tons.  Six  of  them,  females,  w^ere  noted  as  the 
handsomest  young  women  in  the  country.  But 
this  adopted  Bruton,  in  my  mind,  was  better 
than  they  all — more  comely.  She  was  bom  too 
late  to  have  remembered  me.  She  just  recol- 
lected in  early  life  to  have  had  her  cousin  Brid- 
get once  pointed  out  to  her,  climbing  a  stile. 
But  the  name  of  kindred,  and  of  cousinship, 
was  enough.  Those  slender  ties,  that  prove 
slight  as  gossamer  in  the  rending  atmosphere  of 
a  metropolis,  bind  faster,  as  we  found  it,  in 
hearty,  homely,  loving  Hertfordshire.  In  five 
minutes  we  were  as  thoroughly  acquainted  as 


172  Bsea^s  ot  lElla 

if  we  had  been  born  and  bred  up  together  ;  were 
familiar,  even  to  the  calUng  each  other  by  our 
Christian  names.  So  Christians  should  call  one 
another.  To  have  seen  Bridget,  and  her — it. 
was  like  the  meeting  of  the  two  scriptural  cous- 
ins !  There  was  a  grace  and  dignity,  an  apti- 
tude of  form  and  stature,  answering  to  her 
mind,  in  this  farmer's  wife,  which  would  have 
shined  in  a  palace— or  so  we  thought  it.  We 
were  made  welcome  by  husband  and  wife 
equally — we,  and  our  friend  that  was  with  us. 
I  had  almost  forgotten  him, — but  B.  F.  will  not 
so  soon  forget  that  meeting,  if  peradventure  he 
shall  read  this  on  the  far  distant  shores  where  the 
kangaroo  haunts.  The  fatted  calf  was  made 
ready,  or  rather  was  already  so,  as  if  in  antici- 
pation of  our  coming  ;  and,  after  an  appropri- 
ate glass  of  native  wine,  never  let  me  forget  with 
what  honest  pride  this  hospitable  cousin  made  us 
proceed  to  Wheathampstead,  to  introduce  us 
(as  some  new-found  rarity)  to  her  mother  and 
sister  Gladmans,  who  did  indeed  know  some- 
thing more  of  us,  at  a  time  when  she  almost 
knew  nothing.  With  that  corresponding  kind- 
ness we  were  received  by  them  also, — how  Brid- 
get's memory,  exalted  by  the  occasion,  warmed 
into  a  thousand  half-obliterated  recollections  of 
things  and  persons,  to  my  utter  astonishment, 
and  her  own — and  to  the  astoundment  of  B.  F. 


/flbacherg  lEn^,  in  "IberttorDsbicc     173 

who  sat  by,  almost  the  only  thing  that  was  not 
a  cousin  there,— old  effaced  images  of  more  than 
half-forgotten  names  and  circumstances  still 
crowding  back  upon  her  as  w^ords  written  in 
lemon  come  out  upon  exposure  to  a  friendly 
warmth, — when  I  forget  all  this,  then  may  my 
country  cousins  forget  me  ;  and  Bridget  no 
more  remember,  that  in  the  days  of  weakling 
infancy  I  was  her  tender  charge, — as  I  have 
been  her  care  in  foolish  manhood  since, — in 
those  pretty  pastoral  walks,  long  ago,  about 
Mackery  End,  in  Hertfordshire. 


MY  FIRST  PLAY. 


AT  the  north  end  of  Cross  Court  there  yet 
stands  a  portal,  of  some  architectural  pre- 
tensions, though  reduced  to  humble  use,  serv- 
ing at  present  for  an  entrance  to  a  printing- 
office.  This  old  door-way,  if  you  are  young, 
reader,  you  may  not  know  was  the  identical  pit 
entrance  to  old  Drury — Garrick's  Drury, — all 
of  it  that  is  left.  I  never  pass  it  without  shak- 
ing some  forty  years  from  off  my  shoulders,  re- 
curring to  the  evening  when  I  passed  through 
it  to  see  my  first  play.  The  afternoon  had  been 
wet,  and  the  condition  of  our  going  (the  elder 
folks  and  myself)  was,  that  the  rain  should 
cease.  With  what  a  beating  heart  did  I  watch 
from  the  window  the  puddles,  from  the  stillness 
of  which  I  was  taught  to  prognosticate  the  de- 
sired cessation  !  I  seem  to  remember  the  last 
spurt,  and  the  glee  with  which  I  ran  to  an- 
nounce it. 

We  went  with  orders,  which  my  godfather,  F. 
had  sent  us.    He  kept  the  oil-shop  (now  Davies') 


^S  3fir5t  ipla^  175 

at  the  corner  of  Featherstone  Buildings,  in  Hol- 
born.  F.  was  a  tall,  grave  person,  lofty  in 
speech,  and  had  pretensions  above  his  rank. 
He  associated  in  those  days  with  John  Palmer, 
the  comedian,  whose  gait  and  bearing  he  seemed 
to  copy;  if  John  (which  is  quite  as  likely)  did 
not  rather  borrow  somewhat  of  his  manner 
from  my  godfather.  He  was  also  known  to, 
and  visited  by  Sheridan.  It  was  to  his  house 
in  Holborn  that  young  Brinsley  brought  his 
first  wife  on  her  elopement  with  him  from  a 
boarding-school  at  Bath, — the  beautiful  Maria 
Linley.  My  parents  were  present  (over  a  quad- 
rille table)  when  he  arrived  in  the  evening  with 
his  harmonious  charge.  From  either  of  these 
connections  it  may  be  inferred  that  my  god- 
father could  command  an  order  for  the  then 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  at  pleasure, — and,  indeed, 
a  pretty  liberal  issue  of  those  cheap  billets,  in 
Brinsley's  easy  autograph,  I  have  heard  him  say 
was  the  sole  remuneration  which  he  had  re- 
ceived formany years'  nightlyilluminationof  the 
orchestra  and  various  avenues  of  that  theatre, — 
and  he  was  content  it  should  be  so.  The  honor 
of  Sheridan's  familiarity — or  supposed  famil- 
iarity— was  better  to  my  godfather  than  money. 
F.  was  the  most  gentlemanly  of  oilmen  ; 
grandiloquent,  yet  courteous.  His  delivery  of 
the  commonest  matters  of  fact  w^as  Ciceronian. 


176  JE05as0  ot  JElia 

He  had  two  Latin  words  almost  constantly  in 
his  mouth,  (how  odd  sounds  Latin  from  an  oil- 
man's lips!)  which  my  better  knowledge  since 
has  enabled  me  to  correct.  In  strict  pronuncia- 
tion they  should  have  been  sounded  vice  versd, 
— but  in  those  young  years  they  impressed  me 
with  more  awe  than  they  would  now  do,  read 
aright  from  Seneca  or  Varro, — in  his  own  pecul- 
iar pronunciation,  monosyllabically  elaborated, 
or  Anglicized,  into  something  like  verse  verse. 
By  an  imposing  manner,  and  the  help  of  these 
distorted  syllables,  he  climbed  (but  that  was 
little)  to  the  highest  parochial  honors  which  St. 
Andrews  has  to  bestow. 

He  is  dead,— and  thus  much  I  thought  due  to 
his  memory,  both  for  my  first  orders  (little 
wondrous  talismans  ! — slight  keys,  and  insig- 
nificant to  outward  sight,  but  opening  to  me 
more  than  Arabian  paradises  !),  and  moreover 
that  by  his  testamentary  beneficence  I  came 
into  possession  of  the  only  landed  property 
which  I  could  ever  call  my  own, — situate  near 
the  roadway  \dllage  of  pleasant  Puckeridge,  in 
Hertfordshire.  When  I  journeyed  down  to  take 
possession,  and  planted  foot  on  my  own 
ground,  the  stately  habits  of  the  donor  de- 
scended upon  me,  and  I  strode  (shall  I  confess 
the  vanity  ?)  with  larger  paces  over  my  allot- 
ment of  three  quarters  of  an  acre,  with  its  com- 


/IRl2  3flr0t  ipia^  1^7 


modious  mansion  in  the  midst,  with  the  feeling 
of  an  English  freeholder  that  all  betwixt  sky 
and  centre  was  my  own.  The  estate  had  passed 
into  more  prudent  hands,  and  nothing  but  an 
agrarian  can  restore  it. 

In  those  days  were  pit  orders.  Beshrew  the 
uncomfortable  manager  who  abolished  them  ! — 
with  one  of  these  we  went.  I  remember  the 
waiting  at  the  door — not  that  which  is  left — but 
between  that  and  an  inner  door  in  shelter,  — O 
when  shall  I  be  such  an  expectant  again  ! — 
with  the  cry  of  nonpareils,  an  indispensable 
play-house  accompaniment  in  those  days.  As 
near  as  I  can  recollect,  the  fashionable  pronun- 
ciation of  the  theatrical  fruiteresses  then  was, 
*'  Chase  some  oranges,  chase  some  numparels, 
chase  a  bill  of  the  play"  ; — chase  pro  chuse. 
But  when  we  got  in,  I  beheld  the  green  curtain 
that  veiled  a  heaven  to  my  imagination,  which 
was  soon  to  be  disclosed — the  breathless  antici- 
pation I  endured  !  I  had  seen  something  like 
it  in  the  plate  prefixed  to  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
in  Rowe's  Shakspeare, — the  tent  scene  with 
Diomede, — and  a  sight  of  that  plate  can  always 
bring  back  in  a  measure,  the  feeling  of  that 
evening.  The  boxes  at  that  time,  full  of  well- 
dressed  women  of  quality,  projected  over  the 
pit ;  and  the  pilasters  reaching  down  were 
adorned  with  a  glistering  substance  (I  know 


178  Bsea^s  of  lEUa. 


not  what)  under  glass  (as  it  seemed),  resembling 
— a  homely  fancy — but  I  judged  it  to  be  sugar 
candy, — yet,  to  my  raised  imagination,  divested 
of  its  homelier  qualities,  it  appeared  a  glorified 
candy  !  The  orchestra  lights  at  length  arose, 
those  "  fair  Auroras !  "  Once  the  bell  sounded. 
It  was  to  ring  out  yet  once  again, — and,  inca- 
pable of  the  anticipation,  I  reposed  my  shut  eyes 
in  a  sort  of  resignation  upon  the  maternal  lap. 
It  rang  the  second  time.  The  curtain  drew  up, 
— I  was  not  past  six  years  old,  and  the  play  was 
Artaxerxes  ! 

I  had  dabbled  a  little  in  the  Universal  His- 
tory,— the  ancient  part  of  it, — and  here  was  the 
court  of  Persia.  It  was  being  admitted  to  a 
sight  of  the  past.  I  took  no  proper  interest  in 
the  action  going  on,  for  I  understood  not  its 
import, — but  I  heard  the  word  Darius,  and  I 
was  in  the  midst  of  Daniel.  All  feeling  was 
absorbed  in  \nsion.  Gorgeous  vests,  gardens, 
palaces,  princesses,  passed  before  me.  I  knew 
not  players.  I  was  in  Persepolis  for  the  time, 
and  the  burning  idol  of  their  devotion  almost 
converted  me  into  a  worshipper.  I  was  awe- 
struck, and  believed  those  significations  to  be 
something  more  than  elemental  fires.  It  was 
all  enchantment  and  a  dream.  No  such  pleas- 
ure has  since  visited  me  but  in  dreams.  Harle- 
quin's invasion  followed  ;  where,  I  remember, 


/Ilb^  JFlrst  pla^  179 

the  transformatiou  of  the  magistrates  into 
reverend  beldams  seemed  to  me  a  piece  of  grave 
historic  justice,  and  the  tailor  carrying  his  own 
head  to  be  as  sober  a  verity  as  the  legend  of  St. 
Denys. 

The  next  play  to  which  I  was  taken  was  the 
Lady  of  the  Manor,  of  which,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  some  scenery,  very  faint  traces  are  left 
in  my  memory.  It  was  followed  by  a  panto- 
mime, called  Lun's  Ghost— a  satiric  touch, 
I  apprehend,  upon  Rich,  not  long  since  dead — 
but  to  my  apprehension  (too  severe  for  satire), 
Ivun  was  as  remote  a  piece  of  antiquity  as  Lud 
— the  father  of  a  line  of  Harlequins — trans- 
mitting his  dagger  of  lath  (the  wooden  sceptre) 
through  countless  ages.  I  saw  the  primeval 
Motley  come  from  his  silent  tomb  in  a  ghastly 
vest  of  white  patchwork,  like  the  apparition  of 
a  dead  rainbow.  So  Harlequins  (thought  I) 
look  when  they  are  dead. 

My  third  play  followed  in  quick  succession. 
It  was  the  Way  of  the  World.  I  think  I  must 
have  sat  at  it  as  grave  as  a  judge  ;  for,  I  remem- 
ber, the  hysteric  affectations  of  good  Lady  Wish- 
fort  affected  me  like  some  solemn  tragic  pas- 
sion. Robinson  Crusoe  followed ;  in  which 
Crusoe,  man  Friday,  and  the  parrot,  were  as 
good  and  authentic  as  in  the  story.  The  clown- 
ery and  pantaloonery  of  these  pantomimes  have 


i8o  Bssa^e  ot  Blla 

clean  passed  out  of  my  head.  I  believe,  I  no 
more  laughed  at  them,  than  at  the  same  age  I 
should  have  been  disposed  to  laugh  at  the  gro- 
tesque Gothic  heads  (seeming  to  me  then  re- 
plete with  dev'out  meaning)  that  gape,  and 
grin,  in  stone  around  the  inside  of  the  old 
Round  Church  (my  church)  of  the  Templars. 

I  saw  these  plays  in  the  season  1 781-2,  when  I 
was  from  six  to  seven  years  old.  After  the  inter- 
vention of  six  or  seven  other  years  (for  at  school 
all  play -going  was  inhibited)  I  again  entered  the 
doors  of  a  theatre.  That  old  Artaxerxes  even- 
ing had  never  done  ringing  in  my  fancy.  I  ex- 
pected the  same  feelings  to  come  again  with  the 
same  occasion.  But  we  differ  from  ourselves 
less  at  sixty  and  sixteen,  than  the  latter  does 
from  six.  In  that  interval  what  had  I  not  lost ! 
At  the  first  period  I  knew  nothing,  discrimi- 
nated nothing.  I  felt  all,  loved  all,  wondered 
all— 

Was  nourished,  I  could  not  tell  how, — 

I  had  left  the  temple  a  devotee,  and  was  re- 
turned a  rationalist.  The  same  things  were 
there  materially  ;  but  the  emblem,  the  reference, 
was  gone  !  The  green  curtain  w'as  no  longer  a 
veil,  drawn  between  two  worlds,  the  unfolding 
of  which  was  to  bring  back  past  ages  to  present  a 
"  royal  ghost, " — but  a  certain  quantity  of  green 


^S  jfirst  plas  i8i 

taize,  which  was  to  separate  the  audience  for  a 
given  time  from  certain  of  their  fellow-men  who 
were  to  come  forward  and  pretend  those  parts. 
The  lights — the  orchestra  lights — came  up  a 
clumsy  machinery.  The  first  ring,  and  the  sec- 
ond ring,  was  now  but  a  trick  of  the  prompter's 
bell — which  had  been,  like  the  note  of  the 
cuckoo,  a  phantom  of  a  voice,  no  hand  seen  or 
guessed  at  which  ministered  to  its  warning. 
The  actors  were  men  and  women  painted.  I 
thought  the  fault  was  in  them  ;  but  it  was  in 
myself,  and  the  alteration  which  those  many 
centuries  —  of  six  short  twelvemonths — had 
wrought  in  me.  Perhaps  it  was  fortunate  for  me 
that  the  play  of  the  evening  was  but  an  indif- 
ferent comedy,  as  it  gave  me  time  to  crop  some 
unreasonable  expectations,  which  might  have 
interfered  with  the  genuine  emotions  with 
which  I  was  soon  after  enabled  to  enter  upon 
the  first  appearance  to  me  of  Mrs.  Siddons  in 
Isabella.  Comparison  and  retrospection  soon 
yielded  to  the  present  attraction  of  the  scene  ; 
and  the  theatre  became  to  me,  upon  a  new 
stock,  the  most  delightful  of  recreations. 


MODERN  GALLANTRY. 


IN  comparing  modern  vnth  ancient  manners, 
we  are  pleased  to  compliment  ourselves  upon 
the  point  of  gallantry ;  a  certain  obsequious- 
ness, or  deferential  respect,  which  we  are  sup- 
posed to  pay  to  females,  as  females. 

I  shall  believe  that  this  principle  actuates  our 
conduct,  when  I  can  forget,  that  in  the  nine- 
teeth  century,  of  the  era  from  which  we  date 
our  civility,  we  are  but  just  beginning  to  leave 
off  the  very  frequent  practice  of  whipping 
female  in  public,  in  common  with  the  coarsest 
male  offenders. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  influential,  when  I  can 
shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact,  that  in  England 
women  are  still  occasionally — hanged. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  actresses  are  no 
longer  subject  to  be  hissed  off  a  stage  by  gen- 
tlemen. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  Dorimant  hands  a 
fish-wife  across  the  kennel ;  or  assists  the  apple- 


/HboDern  Gallantry  1S3 

woman  to  pick  up  her  wandering  fruit,  which 
some  unlucky  dray  has  just  dissipated. 

I  shall  believe  in  it,  when  the  Dorimants  in 
humbler  life,  who  would  be  thought  in  their 
way  notable  adepts  in  this  refinement,  shall  act 
upon  it  in  places  where  they  are  not  known,  or 
think  themselves  not  observed, — when  I  shall 
see  the  traveller  for  some  rich  tradesman  part 
with  his  admired  box-coat,  to  spread  it  over  the 
defenceless  shoulders  of  the  poor  woman  who 
is  passing  to  her  parish  on  the  roof  of  the  same 
stage-coach  with  him,  drenched  in  the  rain, — 
when  I  shall  no  longer  see  a  woman  standing 
up  in  the  pit  of  a  London  theatre,  till  she  is  sick 
and  faint  with  the  exertion,  with  men  about 
her,  seated  at  their  ease,  and  jeering  at  her  dis- 
tress ;  till  one,  that  seems  to  have  more  man- 
ners or  conscience  than  the  rest,  significantly 
declares  "she  should  be  welcome  to  his  seat, 
if  she  were  a  little  younger  and  handsomer." 
Place  this  dapper  warehouse-man,  or  that 
rider,  in  a  circle  of  their  own  female  acquaint- 
ance, and  you  shall  confess  you  have  not  seen  a 
politer-bred  man  in  Lothbury. 

Lastly,  I  shall  begin  to  believe  that  there  is 
some  such  principle  influencing  our  conduct, 
when  more  than  one  half  of  the  drudgery'-  and 
coarse  servitude  of  the  world  shall  cease  to  be 
performed  by  women. 


i84  Bssags  of  JElla 

Until  that  day  comes,  I  shall  never  believe 
this  boasted  point  to  be  any  thing  more  than  a 
conventional  fiction  ;  a  pageant  got  up  between 
the  sexes,  in  a  certain  rank,  and  at  a  certain 
time  of  life,  in  which  both  find  their  account 
equally. 

I  shall  be  even  disposed  to  rank  it  among  the 
salutary  fictions  of  life,  when  in  polite  circles  I 
shall  see  the  same  attentions  paid  to  age  as  to 
youth,  to  homely  features  as  to  handsome,  to 
coarse  complexions  as  to  clear, — to  the  woman, 
as  she  is  a  woman,  not  as  she  is  a  beauty,  a  for- 
tune, or  a  title. 

I  shall  believe  it  to  be  something  more  than 
a  name,  when  a  well-dressed  gentleman  in  a 
well-dressed  company  can  advert  to  the  topic  of 
female  old  age  without  exciting,  and  intending 
to  excite,  a  sneer; — when  the  phrases  "anti- 
quated virginity,"  and  such  a  one  has  "over- 
stood  her  market,"  pronounced  in  good  com- 
pany, shall  raise  immediate  ofience  in  man,  or 
woman,  that  shall  hear  them  spoken. 

Joseph  Paice,  of  Bread-street  Hill,  merchant, 
and  one  of  the  directors  of  the  South-Sea  Com- 
pany— the  same  to  whom  Edwards,  the  Shaks-- 
peare  commentator,  has  addressed  a  fine  son- 
net— was  the  only  pattern  of  consistent  gallantry 
I  have  met  with.  He  took  me  under  his  shelter 
at  an  early  age,  and  bestowed  some  pains  upon 


/HboDern  ©allantrs  185 

me.  I  owe  to  his  precepts  and  example  what- 
ever there  is  of  the  man  of  business  (and  that  is 
not  much)  in  my  composition.  It  was  not  his 
fault  that  I  did  not  profit  more.  Though  bred 
a  Presbyterian,  and  brought  up  a  merchant,  he 
was  the  finest  gentleman  of  his  time.  He  had 
not  one  system  of  attention  to  females  in  the 
drawing-room,  and  another  in  the  shop,  or  at 
the  stall.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  made  no  dis- 
tinction. But  he  never  lost  sight  of  sex,  or 
overlooked  it  in  the  casualties  of  a  disadvan- 
tageous situation.  I  have  seen  him  stand 
bareheaded — smile  if  you  please — to  a  poor  ser- 
vant-girl, while  she  has  been  inquiring  of  him 
the  way  to  some  street — in  such  a  posture  of 
unforced  civility,  as  neither  to  embarrass  her  in 
the  acceptance,  nor  himself  in  the  offer,  of  it. 
He  was  no  dangler,  in  the  common  acceptation 
of  the  word,  after  women  ;  but  he  reverenced 
and  upheld,  in  every  form  in  which  it  came  be- 
fore him,  womanhood.  I  have  seen  him — nay, 
smile  not — tenderly  escorting  a  market-woman, 
whom  he  had  encountered  in  a  shower,  exalting 
his  umbrella  over  her  poor  basket  of  fruit,  that 
it  might  receive  no  damage,  with  as  much  care- 
fulness as  if  she  had  been  a  countess.  To  the 
reverend  form  of  Female  Eld  he  would  yield 
the  wall  (though  it  were  to  an  ancient  beggar- 
woman)  with  more  ceremony  than  we  can  afford 


i86  Bssa^s  of  jElla 

to  show  our  grandams.  He  was  the  Preux  Chev- 
alier of  Age  ;  the  Sir  Calidore  or  Sir  Tristans 
to  those  who  have  no  Calidores  or  Tristans  to 
defend  them.  The  roses,  that  had  long  faded 
thence,  still  bloomed  for  him  in  those  withered 
and  yellow  cheeks. 

He  was  never  married,  but  in  his  youth  he 
paid  his  addresses  to  the  beautiful  Susan  Win- 
stanley — old  Winstanley's  daughter  of  Clapton, 
who  dying  in  the  early  days  of  their  courtship, 
confirmed  in  him  the  resolution  of  perpetual 
bachelorship.  It  was  during  their  short  court- 
ship, he  told  me,  that  he  had  been  one  day 
treating  his  mistress  to  a  profusion  of  civil 
speeches — the  common  gallantries — to  which 
kind  of  thing  she  had  hitherto  manifested  no 
repugnance — but  in  this  instance  with  no  effect. 
He  could  not  obtain  from  her  a  decent  acknowl- 
edgment in  return.  She  rather  seemed  to  re- 
sent his  compliments.  He  could  not  set  it  down 
to  caprice,  for  the  lady  had  always  shown  her- 
self above  that  littleness.  When  he  ventured, 
on  the  following  day,  finding  her  a  little  better 
humored,  to  expostulate  with  her  on  her  cold- 
ness of  yesterday,  she  confessed,  with  her  usual 
frankness,  that  she  had  no  sort  of  dislike  to  his 
attentions  ;  that  she  could  even  endure  some 
high-flown  compliments  ;  that  a  young  woman 
placed  in  her  situation  had  a  right  to  expect  all 


/IRo^ern  Gallantry  187 

sorts  of  civil  things  said  to  her  ;  that  she  hoped 
she  could  digest  a  dose  of  adulation,  short  of 
insincerity,  with  as  little  injury  to  her  humility 
as  most  young  women  ;  but  that — a  little  before 
he  had  commenced  his  compliments — she  had 
overheard  him  by  accident,  in  rather  rough  lan- 
guage, rating  a  young  woman,  who  had  not 
brought  home  his  cravats  quite  to  the  appointed 
time,  and  she  thought  to  herself,  "  As  I  am  Miss 
Susan  Winstanley,  and  a  young  lady, — a  re- 
puted beauty,  and  known  to  be  a  fortune — I 
can  have  my  choice  of  the  finest  speeches  from 
the  mouth  of  this  very  fine  gentleman  who  is 
courting  me, — but  if  I  had  been  poor  Mary 
Such-a-one  {^naming  the  milliner) — and  had 
failed  of  bringing  home  the  cravats  to  the  ap- 
pointed hour — though  perhaps  I  had  sat  up  half 
the  night  to  forward  them — what  sort  of  com- 
pliments should  I  have  received  then  ?  And 
my  woman's  pride  came  to  my  assistance  ;  and 
I  thought,  that  if  it  were  only  to  do  me  honor, 
a  female,  like  myself,  might  have  received 
handsomer  usage  ;  and  I  was  determined  not 
to  accept  any  fine  speeches,  to  the  compromise 
of  that  sex,  the  belonging  to  which  was  after 
all  my  strongest  claim  and  title  to  them." 

I  think  the  lady  discovered  both  generosity, 
and  a  just  way  of  thinking,  in  this  rebuke  which 
she  gave  her  lover  ;  and  I  have  sometimes  im- 


i88  Bssass  ot  Blia 

agined,  that  the  uncommon  strain  of  courtesy, 
which  through  life  regulated  the  actions  and 
behavior  of  my  friend  toward  all  womankind 
indiscriminately,  owed  its  happy  origin  to  this 
seasonable  lesson  from  the  lips  of  his  lamented 
mistress. 

I  w4sh  the  whole  female  world  would  enter- 
tain the  same  notion  of  these  things  that  Miss 
Winstanley  showed.  Then  we  should  see  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  of  consistent  gallantry  ;  and 
no  longer  witness  the  anomaly  of  the  same  man 
— a  pattern  of  true  politeness  to  a  wife — of  cold 
contempt,  or  rudeness,  to  a  sister — the  idolater 
of  his  female  mistress — the  disparager  and  de- 
spiser  of  his  no  less  female  aunt,  or  unfortunate 
— still  female — maiden  cousin.  Just  so  much 
respect  as  a  woman  derogates  from  her  osvn 
sex,  in  whatever  condition  placed — her  hand- 
maid or  dependent — she  deserves  to  have  dimin- 
ished from  herself  on  that  score  ;  and  probably 
will  feel  the  diminution,  when  youth,  and 
beauty,  and  advantages,  not  inseparable  from 
sex,  shall  lose  of  their  attraction.  What  a 
woman  should  demand  of  a  man  in  courtship, 
or  after  it,  is  first — respect  for  her  as  she  is  a 
woman  ;  and  next  to  that  to  be  respected  by 
him  above  all  other  women.  But  let  her  stand 
upon  her  female  character  as  upon  a  founda- 
tion ;  and  let  the  attentions,  incident  to  indi- 


/IBot)ern  Oallantrg 


189 


vidual  preference,  be  so  many  pretty  addita- 
ments  and  ornaments — as  many,  and  as  fanciful 
as  you  please — to  that  main  structure.  Let  her 
first  lesson  be  with  sweet  Susan  Winstanley — 
to  reverence  her  sex. 


THE    OLD   BENCHERS   OF   THE    INNER 
TEMPLE. 

I  WAS  born,  and  passed  the  first  seven  years 
of  my  life,  in  the  Temple.  Its  church,  its 
halls,  its  gardens,  its  fountain,  its  river,  I  had 
almost  said — for  in  those  young  years,  what  was 
this  king  of  rivers  to  me  but  a  stream  that 
watered  our  pleasant  places  ?  These  are  of  my 
oldest  recollections.  I  repeat,  to  this  day,  no 
verses  to  myself  more  frequently,  or  with  kind- 
lier emotion,  than  those  of  vSpenser,  where  he 
speaks  of  this  spot. 

There  when  they  came,  whereas  those  bricky  towers, 
The  which  on  Themmes  brode  aged  back  doth  ride, 
Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers, 
There  whylome  wont  the  Templar  knights  to  bide, 
Till  they  decayed  through  pride. 

Indeed,  it  is  the  most  elegant  spot  in  the  me- 
tropolis. What  a  transition  for  a  countryman 
visiting  London  for  the  first  time — the  passing 
from  the  crowded  Strand  or  Fleet  Street,  by 
unexpected  avenues,  into  its  magnificent  ample 
squares,  it  classic  green  recesses  !    What  a  cheer- 


Zbc  ®ID  JBencbcrs  191 

fill,  liberal  look  hath  that  portion  of  it,  which, 
from  three  sides,  overlooks  the  greater  garden  ; 
that  goodly  pile 

Of  building  strong,  albeit  of  Paper  hight, 

confronting  with  massive  contrast,  the  lighter, 
older,  more  fantastically  shrouded  one,  named 
of  Harcourt,  with  the  cheerful  Crown-ofiice  Row 
(place  of  my  kindly  engendure),  right  opposite 
the  stately  stream,  which  washes  the  garden- 
foot  with  her  yet  scarcely  trade-polluted  waters, 
and  seems  but  just  weaned  from  her  Twicken- 
ham Naiades  !  a  man  would  give  something  to 
have  been  bom  in  such  places.  What  a  col- 
legiate aspect  has  that  fine  Elizabethan  hall, 
where  the  fountain  plays,  which  I  have  made 
to  rise  and  fall,  how  many  times,  to  the  astound- 
ment  of  the  young  urchins,  my  contemporaries, 
who,  not  being  able  to  guess  at  its  recondite 
machinery,  were  almost  tempted  to  hail  the 
wondrous  work  as  magic  !  What  an  antique 
air  had  the  now  almost  effaced  sundials,  with 
their  moral  inscriptions,  seeming  coevals  with 
that  Time  which  they  measured,  and  to  take 
their  revelations  of  its  flight  immediately  from 
heaven,  holding  correspondence  with  the  foun- 
tain of  light  !  How  would  the  dark  line  steal 
imperceptibly  on,  watched  by  the  eye  of  child- 
hood,   eager    to   detect  its  movement,     never 


192  Basa^s  of  jBiia 

catclied,   nice   as   an  evanescent  cloud,  or  the 
first  arrests  of  sleep  ! 

Ah  !  yet  doth  beauty  like  a  dial-hand 

Steal  from  his  figure,  and  no  pace  perceived  ! 

What  a  dead  thing  is  a  clock,  with  its  pon- 
derous embowelments  of  lead  and  brass,  its 
pert  or  solemn  dulness  of  communication,  com- 
pared with  the  simple  altar-like  structure,  and 
silent  heart-language  of  the  old  dial  !  It  stood 
as  the  garden  god  of  Christian  gardens.  Why- 
is  it  almost  everywhere  vanished  ?  If  its  busi- 
ness-use be  superseded  by  more  elaborate  in- 
ventions, its  moral  uses,  its  beauty,  might  have 
pleaded  for  its  continuance.  It  spoke  of  moder- 
ate labors,  of  pleasures  not  protracted  after  sun- 
set, of  temperance,  and  good  hours.  It  was  the 
primitive  clock,  the  horologe  of  the  first  world. 
Adam  could  scarce  have  missed  it  in  Paradise. 
It  was  the  measure  appropriate  for  sweet  plants 
and  flowers  to  spring  by,  for  the  birds  to  appor- 
tion their  silvery  warblings  by,  for  flocks  to 
pasture  and  be  led  to  fold  by.  The  shepherd 
' '  carved  it  out  quaintly  in  the  sun  ' '  ;  and, 
turning  philosopher  by  the  very  occupation, 
provided  it  with  mottoes  more  touching  than 
tombstones.  It  was  a  pretty  device  of  the 
gardener,  recorded  by  Marvell,  who,  in  the  days 
of  artificial  gardening,  made  a  dial  out  of  herbs 


XLbc  Qlt>  JSencbers  193 

and  flowers.  I  must  quote  his  verses  a  little 
higher  up,  for  they  are  full,  as  all  his  serious 
poetrj^  was,  of  a  witty  delicacy.  They  will  not 
come  in  awkwardly,  I  hope,  in  a  talk  of  foun- 
tains, and  sundials.  He  is  speaking  of  sweet 
garden  scenes  : 

What  wondrous  life  is  this  I  lead  ! 
Ripe  apples  drop  about  my  head. 
The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  my  mouth  do  crush  their  wine. 
The  nectarine,  and  curious  peach, 
Into  my  hands  themselves  do  reach. 
Stumbling  on  melons,  as  I  pass, 
Insnared  with  flowers,  I  fall  on  grass. 
Meanwhile  the  mind  from  pleasure  less 
Withdraws  into  its  happiness. 
The  mind,  that  ocean,  where  each  kind 
Does  straight  its  own  resemblance  find  ; 
Yet  it  creates,  transcending  these, 
Far  other  worlds,  and  other  seas, 
Annihilating  all  that  's  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade. 
Here  at  the  fountain's  sliding  foot, 
Or  at  some  fruit-tree's  mossy  root, 
Casting  the  body's  vest  aside, 
My  soul  into  the  boughs  does  glide  ; 
There,  like  a  bird  it  sits  and  sings. 
Then  wets  and  claps  its  silver  wings, 
And,  till  prepared  for  longer  flight, 
Waves  in  its  plumes  the  various  light. 
How  well  the  skilful  gardener  drew, 
Of  flowers  and  herbs  this  dial  new. 
Where,  from  above,  the  milder  sun 
Does  through  a  fragrant  zodiac  run  ; 


194  Bssa^s  of  BUa 


And,  as  it  works,  the  industrious  bee 
Computes  its  time  as  well  as  we. 
How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 
Be  reckon'd,  but  with  herbs  and  flowers.  * 

The  artificial  fountains  of  the  metropolis  are, 
in  like  manner,  fast  vanishing.  Most  of  them 
are  dried  up,  or  bricked  over.  Yet,  where  one 
is  left,  as  in  that  little  green  nook  behind  the 
South-Sea  House,  what  a  freshness  it  gives  to 
the  dreary  pile  !  Four  little  winged  marble  boys 
used  to  play  their  virgin  fancies,  spouting  out 
ever  fresh  streams  from  their  innocent  wanton 
lips  in  the  square  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  when  I  was 
no  bigger  than  they  were  figured.  They  are 
gone,  and  the  spring  choked  up.  The  fashion, 
they  tell  me,  is  gone  by,  and  these  things  are 
esteemed  childish.  Why  not  then  gratify  chil- 
dren by  letting  them  stand  ?  I^awyers,  I  sup- 
pose, were  children  once.  They  are  awakening 
images  to  them  at  least.  Why  must  every  thing 
smack  of  man  and  mannish  ?  Is  the  world  all 
grown  up  ?  Is  childhood  dead  ?  Or  is  there 
not  in  the  bosoms  of  the  wisest  and  best  some 
of  the  child's  heart  left,  to  respond  to  its  earliest 
enchantments?  The  figures  were  grotesque. 
Are  the  stiff-wigged  living  figures,  that  still 
flitter  and  chatter  about  that  area,  less  Gothic 
in  appearance  ?  or  is  the  splutter  of  their  hot 
*  From  a  copy  of  verses  entitled  The  Garden. 


^be  ©ID  JSencbers  195 

rhetoric  one  half  so  refreshing  and  innocent  as 
the  little  cool  playful  streams  those  exploded 
cherubs  uttered  ? 

They  have  lately  Gothicized  the  entrance  to 
the  Inner  Temple  Hall,  and  the  library  front ;  to 
assimilate  them,  I  suppose,  to  the  body  of  the 
hall,  which  they  do  not  at  all  resemble.  What 
has  become  of  the  winged  horse  that  stood 
over  the  former  ?  a  stately  arms  !  and  who  has 
removed  those  frescoes  of  the  Virtues,  which 
Italianized  the  end  of  the  Paper  Building? — my 
first  hint  of  allegory  I  They  must  account  to  me 
for  these  things,  which  I  miss  so  greatly. 

The  terrace  is,  indeed,  left,  which  we  used  to 
call  the  parade  ;  but  the  traces  are  passed  away 
of  the  footsteps  w^hich  made  its  pavement 
awful !  It  is  become  common  and  profane. 
The  old  benchers  had  it  almost  sacred  to  them- 
selves, in  the  forepart  of  the  day  at  least.  They 
might  not  be  sided  or  jostled.  Their  air  and 
dress  asserted  the  parade.  You  left  wide  spaces 
betwixt  you,  when  you  passed  them.  We  walk 
on  even  terms  with  their  successors.  The  ro- 
guish eye  of  J 11,  ever  ready  to  be  delivered 

of  a  jest,  almost  invites  a  stranger  to  vie  a  re- 
partee with  it.  But  what  insolent  familiar 
durst  have  mated  Thomas  Coventry? — whose 
person  was  a  quadrate,  his  step  massy  and  ele- 
phantine, his  face  square  as  a  lion's,   his  gait 


196  l£63ti^6  Of  BUa 

peremptory  and  path-keeping,  indivertible  from 
his  way  as  a  moving  column,  the  scarecrow  of 
his  inferiors,  the  browbeater  of  equals  and  su- 
periors, who  made  a  solitude  of  children  wher- 
ever he  came,  for  they  fled  his  insufferable 
presence,  as  they  would  have  shunned  an  Elisha 
bear.  His  growl  was  as  thunder  in  their  ears, 
whether  he  spake  to  them  in  mirth  or  in  re- 
buke, his  invitatory  notes,  being  indeed,  of  all, 
the  most  repulsive  and  horrid.  Clouds  of  snuff, 
aggravating  the  natural  terrors  of  his  speech, 
broke  from  each  majestic  nostril,  darkening  the 
air.  He  took  it  not  by  pinches,  but  a  palmful  at 
once,  diving  for  it  under  the  mighty  flaps  of  his 
old-fashioned  waistcoat  pocket ;  his  waistcoat 
red  and  angry,  his  coat  dark  rappee,  tinctured 
by  dye  original,  and  by  adjuncts,  with  buttons  of 
obsolete  gold.     And  so  he  paced  the  terrace. 

By  his  side  a  milder  form  was  sometimes  to 
be  seen  ;  the  pensive  gentility  of  Samuel  Salt. 
They  were  coevals,  and  had  nothing  but  that 
and  their  benchership  in  common.  In  politics 
Salt  was  a  Whig,  and  Coventry  a  stanch  Tory. 
Many  a  sarcastic  growl  did  the  latter  cast  out — 
for  Coventry  had  a  rough  spinous  humor — at 
the  political  confederates  of  his  associate,  which 
rebounded  from  the  gentle  bosom  of  the  latter 
like  cannon  balls  from  wool.  You  could  not 
ruffle  Samuel  Salt, 


trbe  ©10  :©encbcr6  197 

S.  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  very  clever 
man,  and  of  excellent  discernment  in  the  cham- 
ber practice  of  the  law.  I  suspect  his  knowl- 
edge did  not  amount  to  much.  When  a  case  of 
difficult  disposition  of  money,  testamentary  or 
otherwise,  came  before  him,  he  ordinarily 
handed  it  over  with  a  few  instructions  to  his 
man  Lovel,  who  was  a  quick  little  fellow,  and 
would  despatch  it  out  of  hand  by  the  light  of 
natural  understanding,  of  which  he  had  an  un- 
common share.  It  was  incredible  what  repute 
for  talents  S.  enjoyed  by  the  mere  trick  of  grav- 
ity. He  was  a  shy  man  ;  a  child  might  pose  him 
in  a  minute, — indolent  and  procrastinating  to 
the  last  degree.  Yet  men  would  give  him  credit 
for  vast  application,  in  spite  of  himself.  He  was 
not  to  be  trusted  with  himself  with  impunity. 
He  never  dressed  for  a  dinner  party  but  he  for- 
got his  sword — they  wore  swords  then — or  some 
other  necessary  part  of  his  equipage.  Lovel 
had  his  eye  upon  him  on  all  these  occasions, 
and  ordinarily  gave  him  his  cue.  If  there  was 
any  thing  which  he  could  speak  unseasonably  ; 
he  was  sure  to  do  it.  He  was  to  dine  at  a  rela- 
tive's of  the  unfortunate  Miss  Blandy  on  the 
day  of  her  execution  ; — and  L.  who  had  a  wary 
foresight  of  his  probable  hallucinations,  before 
he  set  out,  schooled  him  with  great  anxiety  not 
in  any  possible  manner  to  allude  to  her  story 


that  day.  S.  promised  faithfully  to  observe  the 
injunction.  He  had  not  been  seated  in  the  par- 
lor, where  the  company  was  expecting  the  din- 
ner summons,  four  minutes,  when,  a  pause  in 
the  conversation  ensuing,  he  got  up,  looked 
out  of  the  window,  and  pulling  down  his  ruffles 
— an  ordinary  motion  with  him — observed,  "  it 
was  a  gloomy  day,"  and  added,  "Miss  Blandy 
must  be  hanged  by  this  time,  I  suppose."  In- 
stances of  this  sort  were  perpetual.  Yet  S.  was 
thought  by  some  of  the  greatest  men  of  his 
time  a  fit  person  to  be  consulted,  not  alone  in 
matters  pertaining  to  the  law,  but  in  the  ordi- 
nary niceties  and  embarrassments  of  conduct — 
from  force  of  manner  entirely.  He  never 
laughed.  He  had  the  same  good  fortune  among 
the  female  world, — was  a  known  toast  with  the 
ladies,  and  one  or  two  are  said  to  have  died  for 
love  of  him — I  suppose,  because  he  never  trifled 
or  talked  gallantry  with  them,  or  paid  them,  in- 
deed, hardly  common  attentions.  He  had  a 
fine  face  and  person,  but  wanted,  methought, 
the  spirit  that  should  have  shown  them  off  with 
advantage  to  the  women.  His  eye  lacked  lustre. 
Not  so,  thought  Susan  P.  ;  who,  at  the  ad- 
vanced age  of  sixty,  was  seen,  in  the  cold  even- 
ing time,  unaccompanied,  wetting  the  pave- 
ment of  B d    Row,  with  tears  that  fell  in 

drops  which  might  be  heard,  because  her  friend 


Ebe  ©ID  :©encbcr6  199 


had  died  that  day — he,  whom  she  had  pursued 
with  a  hopeless  passion  for  the  last  forty  years, 
— a  passion,  which  years  could  not  extinguish 
or  abate  ;  nor  the  long-resolved,  yet  gently-en- 
forced, puttings  off  of  unrelenting  bachelor- 
hood dissuade  from  its  cherished  purpose.  Mild 
Susan  P.,  thou  hast  now  thy  friend  in  heaven  ! 

Thomas  Coventry  was  a  cadet  of  the  noble 
family  of  that  name.  He  passed  his  youth  in 
contracted  circumstances,  which  gave  him 
early  those  parsimonious  habits  which  in  after- 
life never  forsook  him  ;  so  that,  with  one  wind- 
fall or  another,  about  the  time  I  knew  him  he 
was  master  of  four  or  five  hundred  thousand 
pounds ;  nor  did  he  look,  or  walk,  worth  a 
moidore  less.  He  lived  in  a  gloomy  house  op- 
posite the  pump  in  Serjeant's  Inn,  Fleet  Street. 
J.,  the  counsel,  is  doing  self-imposed  penance  in 
it,  for  what  reason  I  divine  not,  at  this  day.  C. 
had  an  agreeable  seat  at  North  Cray,  where  he 
seldom  spent  above  a  day  or  two  at  a  time  in 
the  summer  ;  but  preferred,  during  the  hot 
months,  standing  at  his  window  in  this  damp, 
close,  well-like  mansion,  to  watch,  as  he  said, 
"the  maids  drawing  water  all  day  long."  I 
suspect  he  had  his  within-door  reasons  for  the 
preference.  Hie  currus  et  arnia  fuere.  He 
might  think  his  treasures  more  safe.  His  house 
had  the  aspect  of  a  strong-box.     C.  was  a  close 


200  JSs6a>SB  ot  JBlia 


huuks — a  hoarder  rather  than  a  miser — or,  if  a 
miser,  none  of  the  mad  Blwes  breed,  who  have 
brought  discredit  upon  a  character,  which  can- 
not exist  without  certain  admirable  points  of 
steadiness  and  unity  of  purpose.  One  may  hate 
a  true  miser,  but  cannot,  I  suspect,  so  easily  de- 
spise him.  By  taking  care  of  the  pence,  he  is 
often  enabled  to  part  with  the  pounds,  upon  a 
scale  that  leaves  us  careless  generous  fellows 
halting  at  an  immeasurable  distance  behind. 
C.  gave  away  30,000/.  at  once  in  his  life-time  to 
a  blind  charity.  His  housekeeping  was  severely 
looked  after,  but  he  kept  the  table  of  a  gentle- 
man. He  would  know  who  came  in  and  who 
went  out  of  his  house,  but  his  kitchen  chimney 
was  never  suffered  to  freeze. 

Salt  was  his  opposite  in  this,  as  in  all — never 
knew  what  he  was  worth  in  the  world ;  and 
having  but  a  competency  for  his  rank,  which 
his  indolent  habits  w^ere  little  calculated  to  im- 
prove, might  have  suffered  severely  if  he  had 
not  had  honest  people  about  him.  Lovel  took 
care  of  every  thing.  He  w^as  at  once  his  clerk, 
his  good  servant,  his  dresser,  his  friend,  his 
' '  flapper, ' '  his  guide,  stop-watch,  auditor,  treas- 
iirer.  He  did  nothing  without  consulting  Lov- 
el,  or  failed  in  any  thing  without  expecting 
and  fearing  his  admonishing.  He  put  himself 
almost  too  much  in  his  hands,  had  they  not 


trbe  ®l&  J5encber3 


been  the  purest  in  the  world.  He  resigned  his 
title  almost  to  respect  as  a  master,  if  L.  could 
ever  have  forgotten  for  a  moment  that  he  was 
a  servant. 

I  knew  this  Lovel.  He  was  a  man  of  an  in- 
corrigible and  losing  honesty.  A  good  fellow 
withal,  and  "would  stride."  In  the  cause  of 
the  oppressed  he  never  considered  inequalities, 
or  calculated  the  number  of  his  opponents.  He 
once  wrested  a  sword  out  of  the  hand  of  a  man 
of  quality  that  had  drawn  upon  him,  and  pum- 
melled him  severely  with  the  hilt  of  it.  The 
swordsman  had  ofifered  insult  to  a  female — an 
occasion  upon  which  no  odds  against  him  could 
have  prevented  the  interference  of  Lovel.  He 
would  stand  next  day  bareheaded  to  the  same 
person,  modestly  to  excuse  his  interference — 
for  ly.  never  forgot  rank,  where  something 
better  was  not  concerned.  L.  was  the  live- 
liest little  fellow  breathing,  had  a  face  as  gay  as 
Garrick's,  whom  he  was  said  greatly  to  re- 
semble (I  have  a  portrait  of  him  which  confirms 
it),  possessed  a  fine  turn  for  humorous  poetry 
— next  to  Swift  and  Prior — moulded  heads  in 
clay  or  plaster-of-Paris  to  admiration,  by  the 
dint  of  natural  genius  merely  ;  turned  cribbage 
boards,  and  such  small  cabinet  toys,  to  perfec- 
tion ;  took  a  hand  at  quadrille  or  bowls  with 
equal   facility  ;    made   punch   better   than  any 


202  l£66ti^6  Of  BUa 


man  of  his  degree  in  England  ;  had  the  mer- 
liest  quips  and  conceits  ;  and  was  altogether  as 
brimful  of  rogueries  and  inventions  as  you 
could  desire.  He  was  a  brother  of  the  angle, 
moreover,  and  just  such  a  free,  hearty,  honest 
companion  as  Mr.  Isaak  Walton  would  have 
chosen  to  go  a-fishing  with.  I  saw  him  in  his 
old  age  and  the  decay  of  his  faculties,  palsy- 
smitten,  in  the  last  sad  stage  of  human  weak- 
ness— "a  remnant  most  forlorn  of  what  he 
was," — yet  even  then  his  eye  would  light  up 
upon  the  mention  of  his  favorite  Garrick.  He 
was  greatest,  he  would  say,  in  Bayes — "was 
upon  the  stage  nearly  throughout  the  whole 
performance,  and  as  busy  as  a  bee."  At  inter- 
vals, too,  he  would  speak  of  his  former  life,  and 
how  he  came  up  a  little  boy  from  Lincoln  to  go 
to  service,  and  how  his  mother  cried  at  parting 
with  him,  and  how  he  returned,  after  some  few 
years'  absence,  in  his  smart  new  livery,  to  see 
her,  and  she  blessed  herself  at  the  change,  and 
could  hardly  be  brought  to  believe  that  it  was 
"her  own  bairn."  And  then,  the  excitement 
subsiding,  he  would  weep,  till  I  have  wished 
that  sad  second  childhood  might  have  a  mother 
still  to  lay  its  head  upon  her  lap.  But  the  com- 
mon mother  of  us  all  in  no  long  time  after  re- 
ceived him  gently  into  hers. 

With  Coventry,  and  with  Salt,  in  their  walks 


trbc  ©l^  3Bcnchcv6  203 

upon  the  terrace,  most  commonly  Peter  Pierson 
would  join  to  make  up  a  third.  They  did  not 
walk  linked  arm  in  arm  in  those  days — "as 
now  our  stout  triumvirs  sweep  the  streets," — 
but  generally  with  both  hands  folded  behind 
them  for  state,  or  with  one  at  least  behind,  the 
other  carr}-ing  a  cane.  P.  was  a  benevolent, 
but  not  a  prepossessing  man.  He  had  that  in 
his  face  which  you  could  not  term  unhappiuess  ; 
it  rather  implied  an  incapacity  of  being  happy. 
His  cheeks  were  colorless  even  to  whiteness. 
His  look  was  uninviting,  resembling  (but  with- 
out his  sourness)  that  of  our  great  philanthro- 
pist. I  know  that  he  did  good  acts,  but  I  could 
never  make  out  what  he  was.  Contemporary 
with  these,  but  subordinate,  was  Daines  Bar- 
rington — another  oddity.  He  walked  burly  and 
square — in  imitation,  I  think,  of  Coventry — 
howbeit  he  attained  not  to  the  dignity  of  his 
prototype.  Nevertheless,  he  did  pretty  well, 
upon  the  strength  of  being  a  tolerable  anti- 
quarian, and  having  a  brother  a  bishop.  When 
the  account  of  his  year's  treasurership  came  to 
be  audited,  the  following  singular  charge  was 
unanimously  disallowed  by  the  bench  :  "  Item, 
disbursed  Mr.  Allen,  the  gardener,  twenty  shil- 
lings, for  stuff  to  poison  the  sparrows,  by  my 
orders."  Next  to  him  was  old  Barton — a  jolly 
negation,  who  took  upon  him  the  ordering  of 


204  )BB6a^6  Of  Blia 

the  bills  of  fare  for  the  parliament  chamber, 
where  the  benchers  dine — answering  to  the  com- 
bination rooms  at  College — much  to  the  ease- 
ment of  his  less  epicm*ean  brethren.  I  know 
nothing  more  of  him.  Then  Read,  and  Two- 
penny— Read,  good-humored  and  personable — 
Twopenny,  good-humored,  but  thin,  and  felici- 
tous in  jests  upon  his  own  figure.  If  T.  was 
thin,  Wharry  was  attenuated  and  fleeting. 
Many  must  remember  him  (for  he  was  rather  of 
later  date)  and  his  singular  gait,  which  was  per- 
formed by  three  steps  and  a  jump  regularly  suc- 
ceeding. The  steps  were  little  efforts,  like  that 
of  a  child  beginning  to  walk  ;  the  jump  com- 
paratively vigorous,  as  a  foot  to  an  inch.  Where 
he  learned  this  figure,  or  what  occasioned  it,  I 
could  never  discover.  It  was  neither  graceful 
in  itself,  nor  seemed  to  answer  the  purpose  any 
better  than  common  walking.  The  extreme 
tenuity  of  his  frame,  I  suspect,  set  him  upon  it. 
It  was  a  trial  of  poising.  Twopenny  would 
often  rally  him  upon  his  leanness,  and  hail  him 
as  brother  Lusty  ;  but  W.  had  no  relish  of  a 
joke.  His  features  were  spiteful.  I  have  heard 
that  he  would  pinch  his  cat's  ears  extremely, 
when  any  thing  had  offended  him.  Jackson, 
— the  omniscient  Jackson  he  was  called— was  of 
this  period.  He  had  the  reputation  of  possess- 
ing more  multifarious  knowledge  than  any  man 


^be  ©ID  JBcncbers  205 

of  his  time.  He  was  the  Friar  Bacon  of  the  less 
literate  portion  of  the  Temple.  I  remember  a 
pleasant  passage,  of  the  cook  applying  to  him, 
with  much  formality  of  apology,  for  instructions 
how  to  write  down  edge  bone  of  beef  in  his  bill 
of  commons.  He  was  supposed  to  know,  if  any 
man  in  the  world  did.  He  decided  the  orthog- 
raphy to  be  as  I  have  given  it — fortifying  his 
authority  with  such  anatomical  reasons  as  dis- 
missed the  manciple  (for  the  time)  learned  and 
happy.  Some  do  spell  it  yet,  perversely,  aitch 
bone,  from  a  fanciful  resemblance  between  its 
shape  and  that  of  the  aspirate  so  denominated. 
I  had  almost  forgotten  Mingay  with  the  iron 
hand — but  he  was  somewhat  later.  He  had  lost 
his  right  hand  by  some  accident,  and  supplied 
it  with  a  grappling-hook,  w^hich  he  wielded 
with  a  tolerable  adroitness.  I  detected  the 
substitute  before  I  was  old  enough  to  reason 
whether  it  were  artificial  or  not.  I  remember 
the  astonishment  it  raised  in  me.  He  was  a 
blustering,  loud-talking  person  ;  and  I  recon- 
ciled the  phenomenon  to  my  ideas  as  an  em- 
blem of  power — somewhat  like  the  horns  in 
the  forehead  of  Michael  Angelo's  Moses.  Baron 
Maseres,  who  walks  (or  did  till  very  lately)  in 
the  costume  of  the  reign  of  George  the  Second, 
closes  my  imperfect  recollections  of  the  old 
*>enchers  of  the  Inner  Temple. 


2o6  Bssai^s  of  Blla 

Fantastic  forms,  whither  are  you  fled  ?  Or,  if 
the  like  of  you  exist,  why  exist  they  no  more 
for  me  ?  Ye  inexplicable  half-understood  ap- 
pearances, why  comes  in  reason  to  tear  away 
the  preternatural  mist,  bright  or  gloomy,  that 
enshrouded  you?  Why  make  ye  so  sorry  a 
figure  in  my  relation,  who  made  up  to  me — to 
my  childish  eyes — the  mythology  of  the  Tem- 
ple? In  those  days  I  saw  gods  as  "old  men 
covered  with  a  mantle,"  walking  upon  the 
earth.  Let  the  dreams  of  classic  idolatry  perish 
— extinct  be  the  fairies  and  fairy  trumpery  of 
legendary  fabling,  in  the  heart  of  childhood, 
there  will,  forever,  spring  up  a  well  of  innocent 
or  wholesome  superstition, — the  seeds  of  ex- 
aggeration will  be  busy  there,  and  vital — from 
every-day  forms  educing  the  unknown  and  the 
uncommon.  In  that  little  Goshen  there  will  be 
light,  when  the  grown  world  flounders  about  in 
the  darkness  of  sense  and  materiality.  While 
childhood,  and  while  dreams,  reducing  child- 
hood, shall  be  left,  imagination  shall  not  have 
spread  her  holy  wings  totally  to  fly  the  earth. 

P.  S. — I  have  done  injustice  to  the  soft  shade 
of  Samuel  Salt.  See  what  it  is  to  trust  to  im- 
perfect memory',  and  the  erring  notices  of  child- 
hood !  Yet  I  protest  I  alwa3-s  thought  that  he 
had  been  a  bachelor  !     This  gentleman,  R.  N. 


trbe  ©lb  McncbcvB  207 

informs  me,  married  young,  and  losing  his  lady 
in  childbed,  within  the  first  year  of  their  union, 
fell  into  a  deep  melancholy,  from  the  effects  of 
which  probably  he  never  thoroughly  recovered. 
In  what  a  new  light  does  this  place  his  rejection 
(O  call  it  by  a  gentler  name  !)  of  mild  Susan 
P.,  unravelling  into  beauty  certain  peculi- 
arities of  this  shy  and  retiring  character ! 
Henceforth,  let  no  one  receive  the  narratives  of 
Elia  for  true  records  !  They  are,  in  truth,  but 
shadows  of  fact — verisimilitudes,  not  verities — 
or  sitting  but  upon  the  remote  edges  and  out- 
skirts of  history.  He  is  no  such  honest  chron- 
icler as  R.  N. ,  and  would  have  done  better  per- 
haps to  have  consulted  that  gentleman,  before 
he  sent  these  incondite  reminiscences  to  press. 
But  the  worthy  sub-treasurer — who  respects  his 
old  and  his  new  masters — would  but  have  been 
puzzled  at  the  indecorous  liberties  of  Elia.  The 
good  man  wots  not,  peradventure,  of  the  license 
which  3Iagazmes  have  arrived  at  in  this  plain- 
speaking  age,  or  hardly  dreams  of  their  ex- 
istence beyond  the  Gentleman'' s — his  farthest 
monthly  excursions  in  this  nature  having  been 
long  confined  to  the  hoi}'-  ground  of  honest 
Urban' s  obituary.  May  it  be  long  before  his 
own  name  shall  help  to  swell  those  columns  of 
unenvied  flattery !  Meantime,  O  ye  New  Bench- 
ers of  the  Inner  Temple,  cherish  him  kindly, 


2o8  jSssags  of  jeiia 


for  he  is  himself  the  kindliest  of  human  crea- 
tures. Should  infirmities  overtake  him — he  is 
yet  in  green  and  vigorous  senility — make  allow- 
ance for  them,  remembering  that  *'ye  your- 
selves are  old."  So  may  the  Winged  Horse, 
your  ancient  badge  and  cognizance,  still  flour- 
ish !  so  may  future  Hookers  and  Seldens  illus- 
trate your  church  and  chambers  !  so  may  the 
sparrows,  in  default  of  more  melodious  choris- 
ters, unpoisoned,  hop  about  your  walks  !  so  may 
the  fresh-colored  and  cleanly  nursery  maid,  who, 
by  leave,  airs  her  playful  charge  in  your  stately 
gardens,  drop  her  prettiest  blushing  curtesy  as  ye 
pass,  reductive  of  juvenescent  emotion  !  so  may 
the  younkers  of  this  generation  eye  you,  pacing 
your  stately  terrace,  with  the  same  superstitious 
veneration,  with  which  the  child  Elia  gazed  on 
the  Old  Worthies  that  solemnized  the  parade 
before  ye  ! 


GRACE  BEFORE  MEAT. 


THE  custom  of  saying  grace  at  meals  had, 
probably,  its  origin  in  the  early  times  of 
the  world,  and  the  hunter  state  of  man,  when 
dinners  were  precarious  things,  and  a  full  meal 
was  something  more  than  a  common  blessing  ! 
when  a  bellyful  was  a  windfall,  and  looked  like 
a  special  providence.  In  the  shouts  and  tri- 
umphal songs  with  which,  after  a  season  of 
sharp  abstinence,  a  lucky  booty  of  deer's  or 
goat's  flesh  would  naturally  be  ushered  home, 
existed,  perhaps,  the  germ  of  the  modern  grace. 
It  is  not  otherwise  easy  to  be  understood,  why 
the  blessing  of  food — the  act  of  eating — should 
have  had  a  particular  expression  of  thanksgiv- 
ing annexed  to  it,  distinct  from  that  implied 
and  silent  gratitude  with  which  we  are  expected 
to  enter  upon  the  enjoyment  of  the  many  other 
various  gifts  and  good  things  of  existence. 

I  ow^n  that  I  am  disposed  to  say  grace  upon 
twenty  other  occasions  in  the  course  of  the  day 
besides  my  dinner.     I  want  a  form  for  setting 


j£60a^0  ot  }£Ua 


out  upon  a  pleasant  walk,  for  a  moonlight  ram- 
ble, for  a  friendly  meeting,  or  a  solved  problem. 
Why  have  we  none  for  books,  those  spiritual 
repasts — a  grace  before  Milton — a  grace  before 
Shakspeare — a  devotional  exercise  proper  to  be 
said  before  reading  the  "  Fairy  Queen"? — but 
the  received  ritual  having  prescribed  these  forms 
to  the  solitary  ceremony  of  manducation,  I  shall 
confine  my  observation  to  the  experience  which 
I  have  had  of  the  grace,  properly  so  called, — 
commending  my  new  scheme  for  extension  to 
a  niche  in  the  grand  philosophical,  poetical, 
and  perchance  in  part  heretical,  liturgy,  now 
compiling  by  my  friend  Homo  Humanus,  for 
the  use  of  a  certain  snug  congregation  of  Uto- 
pian Rabelaesian  Christians,  no  matter  where 
assembled. 

The  form,  then,  of  the  benediction  before  eat- 
ing has  its  beauty  at  a  poor  man's  table,  or  at 
the  simple  and  unprovocative  repast  of  children. 
It  is  here  that  the  grace  becomes  exceedingly 
graceful.  The  indigent  man,  who  hardly  knows 
whether  he  shall  have  a  meal  the  next  day  or 
not,  sits  down  to  his  fare  with  a  present  sense  of 
the  blessing,  which  can  be  but  feebly  acted  by 
the  rich,  into  whose  minds  the  conception  of 
wanting  a  dinner  could  never,  but  by  some  ex- 
treme theory,  have  entered.  The  proper  end  of 
food — the  animal  sustenance — is  barely  contem- 


Grace  betore  /IReat 


plated  by  them.  The  poor  man's  bread  is  his 
daily  bread,  literally  his  bread  for  the  day. 
Their  courses  are  perennial. 

Again,  the  plainest  diet  seems  the  fittest  to  be 
preceded  by  the  grace.  That  which  is  least 
stimulative  to  appetite,  leaves  the  mind  most 
free  for  foreign  considerations.  A  man  may 
feel  thankful,  heartily  thankful,  over  a  dish  of 
plain  mutton  with  turnips,  and  have  leisure  to 
reflect  upon  the  ordinance  and  institution  of 
eating ;  when  he  shall  confess  a  perturbation  of 
mind,  inconsistent  with  the  purposes  of  the 
grace,  at  the  presence  of  venison  or  turtle. 
"When  I  have  sat  (a  rams  hospes)  at  rich  men's 
tables,  with  the  savory  soup  and  messes  steam- 
ing up  the  nostrils,  and  moistening  the  lips  of 
the  guests  with  desire  and  a  distracted  choice, 
I  have  felt  the  introduction  of  that  ceremony  to 
be  unseasonable.  With  the  ravenous  orgasm 
upon  you,  it  seems  impertinent  to  interpose  a 
religious  sentiment.  It  is  a  confusion  of  pur- 
pose to  mutter  out  praises  from  a  mouth  that 
waters.  The  heats  of  epicurism  put  out  the 
gentle  flame  of  devotion.  The  incense  which 
rises  round  is  pagan,  and  the  bellygod  inter- 
cepts it  for  his  own.  The  very  excess  of  the 
provision  beyond  the  needs,  takes  away  all 
sense  of  proportion  between  the  end  and  the 
means.     The  giver  is  veiled  by  his  gifts.     You 


JE66ti>ee  of  Blla 


are  startled  at  the  injustice  of  returning  tfianks 
— for  what  ? — for  having  too  much,  while  so 
many  starve.     It  is  to  praise  the  gods  amiss. 

I  have  observed  this  awkwardness  felt,  scarce 
consciously^  perhaps,  by  the  good  man  who  says 
the  grace.  I  have  seen  it  in  clergymen  and 
others — a  sort  of  shame — a  sense  of  the  co-pres- 
ence of  circumstances  which  unhallow  the  bless- 
ing. After  a  devotional  tone  put  on  for  a  few 
seconds,  how  rapidly  the  speaker  will  fall  into 
his  common  voice !  helpinghimself  or  his  neigh- 
bor, as  if  to  get  rid  of  some  uneasy  sensation  of 
hypocrisy.  Not  that  the  good  man  was  a  hypo- 
crite, or  was  not  most  conscientious  in  the  dis- 
charge of  the  duty  ;  but  he  felt  in  his  inmost 
mind  the  incompatability  of  the  scene  and  the 
viands  before  him  with  the  exercises  of  a  calm 
and  rational  gratitude. 

I  hear  somebody  exclaim — Would  you  have 
Christians  sit  down  at  table,  like  hogs  to  their 
troughs,  without  remembering  the  Giver? — no, 
^—1  would  have  them  sit  down  as  Christians, 
remembering  the  Giver,  and  less  like  hogs.  Or 
if  their  appetites  must  run  riot,  and  they  must 
pamper  themselves  with  delicacies  for  which 
east  and  west  are  ransacked,  I  would  have  them 
postpone  their  benediction  to  a  fitter  season, 
when  appetite  is  laid  ;  when  the  still  small  voice 
can  be  heard,  and  the  reason  of  the  grace  re- 


(5race  before  /iReat  213 


turus — with  temperate  diet  and  restricted  dishes. 
Gluttony  and  surfeiting  are  no  proper  occasions 
for  thanksgiving.  When  Jeshurun  waxed  fat, 
we  read  that  he  kicked.  Virgil  knew  the  harpy- 
nature  better,  when  he  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Celseno  any  thing  but  a  blessing.  We  may  be 
gratefully  sensible  of  the  deliciousness  of  some 
kinds  of  food  beyond  others,  though  that  is  a 
meaner  and  inferior  gratitude ;  but  the  proper 
object  of  the  grace  is  sustenance,  not  relishes  ; 
daily  bread,  not  delicacies  ;  the  means  of  life, 
and  not  the  means  of  pampering  the  carcass. 
With  what  frame  or  composure,  I  wonder,  can 
a  city  chaplain  pronounce  his  benediction  at 
some  great  Hall-feast,  when  he  knows  that  his 
last  concluding  pious  word — and  that,  in  all 
probability,  the  sacred  name  which  he  preaches 
is  but  the  signal  for  so  many  impatient  harpies 
to  commence  their  foul  orgies,  with  as  little 
sense  of  true  thankfulness  (which  is  temper- 
ance) as  those  Virgilian  fowl !  It  is  well  if  the 
good  man  himself  does  not  feel  his  devotions  a 
little  clouded,  those  foggy  sensuous  steams 
mingling  with  and  polluting  the  pure  altar 
sacrifice. 

The  severest  satire  upon  full  tables  and  sur- 
feits is  the  banquet  which  vSatan,  in  the  Para- 
dise Regained,  provides  for  a  temptation  in  the 
wilderness  : 


214  JEgsa^s  ot  jeiia 

A  table  richly  spread  in  regal  mode 
Witli  dishes  piled,  and  meats  of  noblest  sort 
And  savor  ;  beasts  of  chase,  or  fowl  of  game, 
In  pastry  built,  or  from  the  spit,  or  boiled, 
Gris-amber-steamed  ;  all  fish  from  sea  or  shore, 
Freshet  or  purling  brook,  for  which  was  drained 
Pontus,  and  I^ucrine  bay,  and  Afric  coast. 

The  Tempter,  I  warrant  you,  thought  these 
cates  would  go  down  without  the  recommenda- 
tory preface  of  a  benediction.  They  are  Hke  to 
be  short  graces  where  the  Devil  plays  the  host. 
I  am  afraid  the  poet  wants  his  usual  decorum  in 
this  place.  Was  he  thinking  of  the  old  Roman 
luxury,  or  of  a  gaudy  day  at  Cambridge  ?  This 
was  a  temptation  fitter  for  a  Heliogabalus.  The 
whole  banquet  is  too  civic  and  culinary,  and 
the  accompaniments  altogether  a  profanation  of 
that  deep,  abstracted  holy  scene.  The  mighty 
artillery  of  sauces,  which  the  cook-fiend  con- 
jures up,  is  out  of  proportion  to  the  simple 
wants  and  plain  hunger  of  the  guest.  He  that 
disturbed  him  in  his  dreams,  from  his  dreams 
might  have  been  taught  better.  To  the  tem- 
perate fantasies  of  the  famished  Son  of  God, 
what  sort  of  feasts  presented  themselves  ? — He 
dreamed  indeed. 

As  appetite  is  wont  to  dream. 
Of  meats  and  drinks,  nature's  refreshment  sweet. 

But  what  meats  ? 


(3race  bctore  ^eat  215 

Him  thought,  he  by  the  brook  of  Cherith  stood, 

And  saw  the  ravens  with  their  horny  beaks 

Food  to  Elijah  bringing  even  and  morn  ; 

Though  ravenous,  taught  to  abstain  from  what  they 

brought : 
He  saw  the  prophet  also  how  he  fled 
Into  the  desert,  and  how  there  he  slept 
Under  a  Juniper  ;  then  how  awaked 
He  found  his  supper  on  the  coals  prepared, 
And  by  the  angel  was  bid  rise  and  eat, 
And  ate  the  second  time  after  repose. 
The  strength  whereof  sufficed  him  forty  days  ; 
Sometimes,  that  with  Elijah  he  partook, 
Or  as  a  guest  with  Daniel  at  his  pulse. 

Nothing  in  Milton  is  finelier  fancied  than 
these  temperate  dreams  of  the  divine  Hun- 
gerer.  To  which  of  these  two  visionary  ban- 
quets, think  you,  would  the  introduction  of 
what  is  called  the  grace  have  been  the  most  fit- 
ting and  pertinent  ? 

Theoretically  I  am  no  enemy  to  graces  ;  but 
practically  I  own  that  (before  meat  especially) 
they  seem  to  involve  something  awkward  and 
unseasonable.  Our  appetites,  of  one  or  another 
kind,  are  excellent  spurs  to  our  reason,  which 
might  otherwise  but  feebly  set  about  the  great 
ends  of  preserving  and  continuing  the  species. 
They  are  fit  blessings  to  be  contemplated  at  a 
distance  with  a  becoming  gratitude  ;  but  the 
moment  of  appetite  (the  judicious  reader  will 
apprehend  me)  is,  perhaps,  the  least  fit  season 


2i6  Bseai^s  of  J£lia 

for  that  exercise.  The  Quakers,  who  go  about 
their  business  of  every  description  with  more 
calmness  than  we,  have  more  title  to  the  use  of 
these  benedictory  prefaces,  I  have  always  ad- 
mired their  silent  grace,  and  the  more  because 
I  have  observed  their  applications  to  the  meat 
and  drink  following  to  be  less  passionate  and 
sensual  than  ours.  They  are  neither  gluttons 
nor  wine-bibbers  as  a  people.  They  eat,  as  a 
horse  bolts  his  chopped  hay,  with  indifference, 
calmness,  and  cleanly  circumstances.  They 
neither  grease  nor  slop  themselves.  When  I  see 
a  citizen  in  his  bib  and  tucker,  I  cannot  imagine 
it  a  surplice, 

I  am  no  Quaker  at  my  food.  I  confess  I  am 
not  indifferent  to  the  kinds  of  it.  Those  unctu- 
ous morsels  of  deer's  flesh  were  not  made  to  be 
received  with  dispassionate  services.  I  hate  a 
man  who  swallows  it,  affecting  not  to  know 
what  he  is  eating.  I  suspect  his  taste  in  higher 
matters.  I  shrink  instinctively  from  one  who 
professes  to  like  minced  veal.  There  is  a  phy- 
siognomical character  in  the  tastes  for  food. 
C.  holds  that  a  man  cannot  have  a  pure  mind 
who  refuses  apple-dumplings.  I  am  not  cer- 
tain but  he  is  right.  With  the  decay  of  my  first 
innocence,  I  confess  a  less  and  less  relish  daily 
for  those  innocuous  cates.  The  whole  vegeta- 
ble tribe  have  lost  their  gust  with  me.     Only  I 


(Brace  bctore  /iBeat  217 

stick  to  asparagus,  which  still  seems  to  inspire 
gentle  thoughts.  I  am  impatient  and  queru- 
lous under  culinary  disappointments,  as  to  come 
home  at  the  dinner  hour,  for  instance,  expecting 
some  savory  mess,  and  to  find  one  quite  taste- 
less and  sapidless.  Butter  ill  melted — that  com- 
monest of  kitchen  failures — ^puts  me  beside  my 
tenor.  The  author  of  the  ' '  Rambler ' '  used  to 
make  inarticulate  animal  noises  over  a  favorite 
food.  Was  this  the  music  quite  proper  to  be 
preceded  by  the  grace  ?  or  would  the  pious  man 
have  done  better  to  postpone  his  devotions  to  a 
season  when  the  blessing  might  be  contem- 
plated with  less  perturbation  ?  I  quarrel  with 
no  man's  tastes,  nor  would  set  my  thin  face 
against  those  excellent  things,  in  their  way, 
jollity  and  feasting.  But  as  these  exercises, 
however  laudable,  have  little  in  them  of  grace 
or  gracefulness,  a  man  should  be  sure,  before 
he  ventures  so  to  grace  them,  that  while  he  is 
pretending  his  devotions  otherwhere,  he  is  not 
secretly  kissing  his  hand  to  some  great  fish — 
his  Dagon — with  a  special  consecration  of  no 
ark  but  the  fat  tureen  before  him.  Graces  are 
the  sweet  preluding  strains  to  the  banquets  of 
angels  and  children  ;  to  the  roots  and  severer 
repasts  of  the  Chartreuse  ;  to  the  slender,  but 
not  slenderly  acknowledged,  refection  of  the 
poor  and  humble  man  ;  but   at  the  heaped-up 


2i8  iBesa^B  ot  JBiia 


boards  of  the  pampered  and  the  luxurious  they 
become  of  dissonant  mood,  less  timed  and  tuned 
to  the  occasion,  methinks,  than  the  noise  of 
those  better  befitting  organs  would  be  which 
children  hear  tales  of,  at  Hog's  Norton.  We 
sit  too  long  at  our  meals,  or  are  too  curious  in 
the  study  of  them,  or  too  disordered  in  our  ap- 
plication to  them,  or  engross  too  great  a  portion 
of  those  good  things  (which  should  be  common) 
to  our  share,  to  be  able  with  any  grace  to  say 
grace.  To  be  thankful  for  what  w^e  grasp  ex- 
ceeding our  proportion,  is  to  add  hypocrisy  to 
injustice.  A  lurking  sense  of  this  truth  is  what 
makes  the  performance  of  this  duty  so  cold  and 
spiritless  a  service  at  most  tables.  In  houses 
where  the  grace  is  as  indispensable  as  the  nap- 
kin, who  has  not  seen  that  never-settled  ques- 
tion arise,  as  to  zako  shall  say  it  ?  while  the  good 
man  of  the  house  and  the  visitor  clergyman,  or 
some  other  guest,  belike  of  next  authority, 
from  years  of  gravity,  shall  be  bandying  about 
the  office  between  them  as  a  matter  of  compli- 
ment, each  of  them  not  unwilling  to  shift  the 
awkw^ard  burden  of  an  equivocal  duty  from  his 
own  shoulders? 

I  once  drank  tea  in  company  with  two  Metho- 
dist divines  of  different  persuasions,  whom  it 
was  my  fortune  to  introduce  to  each  other  for 
the  first  time  that  evening.     Before  the  first  cup 


Grace  before  ^eat  219 

was  handed  around,  one  of  these  reverend  gen- 
tlemen put  it  to  the  other,  with  all  due  solem- 
nity, whether  he  chose  to  say  ajiy  thing.  It 
seems  it  is  the  custom  with  some  sectaries  to 
put  up  a  short  prayer  before  this  meal  also.  His 
reverend  brother  did  not  at  first  quite  appre- 
hend him,  but  upon  an  explanation,  with  little 
less  importance  he  made  answer  that  it  was  not 
a  custom  known  to  his  church  ;  in  which  cour- 
teous evasion  the  other  acquiescing  for  good 
manners'  sake,  or  in  compliance  with  a  weak 
brother,  the  supplementary  or  tea-grace  was 
waived  altogether.  With  what  spirit  might  not 
Lucian  have  painted  two  priests  oi  his  religion 
playing  into  each  other's  hands  the  compliment 
of  performing  or  omitting  a  sacrifice — the  hun- 
gry God  meantime,  doubtful  of  his  incense, 
with  expectant  nostrils  hovering  over  the  two 
flamens,  and  (as  between  two  stools)  going 
away  in  the  end  without  his  supper. 

A  short  form  upon  these  occasions  is  felt  to 
want  reverence  ;  a  long  one,  I  am  afraid,  can- 
not escape  the  charge  of  impertinence.  I  do 
not  quite  approve  of  the  epigrammatic  concise- 
ness with  which  that  equivocal  wag  (but  my 
pleasant  school-fellow)  C.  V.  L.,  when  impor- 
tuned for  a  grace,  used  to  inquire,  first  slyly 
leering  down  the  table,  "  Is  there  no  clergyman 
here?" — significantly  adding,  "Thank  G ." 


}E06aK?s  of  JElfa 


Nor  do  I  think  our  old  form  at  school  quite  per- 
tinent, where  we  were  used  to  preface  our  bald 
bread-and-cheese  suppers  with  a  preamble,  con- 
necting with  that  humble  blessing  a  recognition 
of  benefits  the  most  awful  and  overwhelming  to 
the  imagination  which  religion  has  to  offer. 
Non  tunc  illis  erat  locus.  I  remember  we  were 
put  to  it  to  reconcile  the  phrase  "  good  creat- 
ures, "upon  which  the  blessing  rested,  with  the 
fare  set  before  us,  wilfully  understanding  that 
expression  in  a  low  and  animal  sense — till  some 
one  recalled  a  legend,  which  told  how,  in  the 
golden  days  of  Christ's,  the  young  Hospitallers 
were  wont  to  have  some  smoking  joints  of  roast 
meat  upon  their  nightly  boards,  till  some  pious 
benefactor,  commiserating  the  decencies,  rather 
than  the  palates,  of  the  children,  commuted 
our  flesh  for  garments,  and  gave  us — horresco 
ref evens — trousers  instead  of  mutton. 


^^ 


DREAM-CHILDREN  ;    A  REVERY. 


CHILDREN  love  to  listen  to  stories  about 
their  elders,  when  they  were  children  ;  to 
stretch  their  imagination  to  the  conception  of  a 
traditionary  great-uncle,  or  grandame,  whom 
they  never  saw.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  my 
little  ones  crept  about  me  the  other  evening  to 
hear  about  their  great-grandmother  Field,  who 
lived  in  a  great  house  in  Norfolk  (a  hundred 
times  bigger  than  that  in  which  thej^  and  papa 
lived)  which  had  been  the  scene — so  at  least  it 
was  generally  believed  in  that  part  of  the  coun- 
try— of  the  tragic  incidents  which  they  had 
lately  become  familiar  with  from  the  ballad  of 
the  Children  in  the  Wood.  Certain  it  is  that 
the  whole  story  of  the  children  and  their  cruel 
uncle  was  to  be  seen  fairly  carved  out  in  wood 
upon  the  chimney-piece  of  the  great  hall,  the 
whole  story  down  to  the  Robin  Redbreasts  ;  till 
a  foolish  rich  person  pulled  it  down  to  set  up  a 
marble  one  of  modern  invention  in  its  stead. 


222  jEssagB  ot  :ieua 

with  no  story  upon  it.  Here  Alice  put  out  one 
of  her  dear  mother's  looks,  too  tender  to  be 
called  upbraiding.  Then  I  went  on  to  say  how 
religious  and  how  good  their  great-grandmother 
Field  was,  how  beloved  and  respected  by  every- 
body, though  she  was  not  indeed  the  mistress 
of  this  great  house,  but  had  only  the  charge  of 
it  (and  yet  in  some  respects  she  might  be  said 
to  be  the  mistress  of  it  too)  committed  to  her 
by  the  owner,  who  preferred  living  in  a  newer 
and  more  fashionable  mansion  which  he  had 
purchased  somewhere  in  the  adjoining  county  ; 
but  still  she  lived  in  it  in  a  manner  as  if  it  had 
been  her  own,  and  kept  up  the  dignity  of  the 
great  house  in  a  sort  while  she  lived,  which 
afterwards  came  to  decay,  and  was  nearly  pulled 
down,  and  all  its  old  ornaments  stripped  and 
carried  away  to  the  owner's  other  house,  where 
they  were  set  up,  and  looked  as  awkward  as  if 
some  one  were  to  carry  away  the  old  tombs 
they  had  seen  lately  at  the  Abbey,  and  stick 
them  up  in  Lady  C.'s  tawdry  gilt  drawing- 
room.  Here  John  smiled,  as  much  as  to  say, 
"that  would  be  foolish  indeed."  And  then  I 
told  how,  when  she  came  to  die,  her  funeral 
was  attended  by  a  concourse  of  all  the  poor, 
and  some  of  the  gentry  too,  of  the  neighbor- 
hood for  many  miles  round,  to  show  their  re- 
spect for  her  memory,  because  she  had  been 


S)ream*Gbilt)ren ;  B  IRcverg       223 

such  a  good  and  religious  woman  ;  so  good  in- 
deed that  she  knew  all  the  Psaltery  by  heart, 
ay,  and  a  great  part  of  the  Testament  besides. 
Here  little  Alice  spread  her  hands.  Then  I  told 
what  a  tall,  upright,  graceful  person  their  great- 
grandmother  Field  once  was  ;  and  how  in  her 
youth  she  was  esteemed  the  best  dancer, — here 
Alice's  little  right  foot  played  an  involuntary 
movement,  till,  upon  my  looking  grave,  it  de- 
sisted,— the  best  dancer,  I  was  saying,  in  the 
count}',  till  a  cruel  disease,  called  a  cancer, 
came,  and  bowed  her  down  with  pain  ;  but  it 
could  never  bend  her  good  spirits,  or  make 
them  stoop,  but  they  were  still  upright,  be- 
cause she  was  so  good  and  religious.  Then  I 
told  how  she  was  used  to  sleep  by  herself  in  a 
lone  chamber  of  the  great  lone  house  ;  and  how 
she  believed  that  an  apparition  of  two  infants 
was  to  be  seen  at  midnight  gliding  up  and  down 
the  great  staircase  near  where  she  slept,  but 
she  said  "those  innocents  would  do  her  no 
harm  "  ;  and  how  frightened  I  used  to  be, 
though  in  those  days  I  had  my  maid  to  sleep 
with  me,  because  I  was  never  half  so  good  or 
religious  as  she, — and  yet  I  never  saw  the  in- 
fants. Here  John  expanded  all  his  eyebrows, 
and  tried  to  look  courageous.  Then  I  told  how 
good  she  was  to  all  her  grandchildren,  ha\dng 
us  to  the  great  house  in  the  holidays,  where  I 


224  Bssags  of  :eila 

in  particular  used  to  spend  many  hours  by  my- 
self, in  gazing  upon  the  old  busts  of  the  twelve 
Caesars,  that  had  been  Emperors  of  Rome,  till 
the  old  marble  heads  would  seem  to  live  again, 
or  I  to  be  turned  into  marble  with  them  ;  how  I 
never  could  be  tired  with  roaming  about  that 
huge  mansion,  with  its  vast  empty  rooms,  with 
their  worn-out  hangings,  fluttering  tapestry,  and 
carved  oaken  panels,  with  the  gilding  almost 
rubbed  out, — sometimes  in  the  spacious  old- 
fashioned  gardens,  which  I  had  almost  to  my- 
self, unless  when  now  and  then  a  solitarj-  gar- 
dening man  would  cross  me, — and  how  the 
nectarines  and  peaches  hung  upon  the  walls, 
without  my  ever  offering  to  pluck  them ,  because 
they  were  forbidden  fruit,  unless  now  and  then, 
— and  because  I  had  more  pleasure  in  strolling 
about  among  the  old  melancholy-looking  yew- 
trees,  or  the  firs,  and  picking  up  the  red  berries, 
and  the  fir-apples,  which  were  good  for  nothing 
but  to  look  at, — or  in  lying  about  upon  the 
fresh  grass  with  all  the  fine  garden  smells 
around  me, — or  basking  in  the  orangery,  till  I 
could  almost  fancy  myself  ripening  too  along 
with  the  oranges  and  the  limes  in  that  grateful 
warmth, — or  in  watching  the  dace  that  darted 
to  and  fro  in  the  fish-pond,  at  the  bottom  of  the 
garden,  with  here  and  there  a  great  sulky  pike 
hanging  midway  down  the  water  in  silent  state. 


2)ream»CbUDren ;  B  IRcvcrg       225 

as  if  it  mocked  at  their  impertinent  friskings  ; 
— I  had  more  pleasure  in  these  busy-idle  diver- 
sions than  in  all  the  sweet  flavors  of  peaches, 
nectarines,  oranges,  and  such-like  common 
baits  of  children.  Here  John  slyly  deposited 
back  upon  the  plate  a  bunch  of  grapes,  which, 
not  unobserved  by  Alice,  he  had  meditated  di- 
viding with  her,  and  both  seemed  willing  to 
relinquish  them  for  the  present  as  irrelevant. 
Then,  in  a  somewhat  more  heightened  tone,  I 
told  how,  though  their  great-grandmother  Field 
loved  all  her  grandchildren,  yet  in  an  especial 
manner  she  might  be  said  to  love  their  uncle, 
John  L.,  because  he  was  so  handsome  and 
spirited  a  youth,  and  a  king  to  the  rest  of  us  ; 
and,  instead  of  moping  about  in  solitary  corners, 
like  some  of  us,  he  would  mount  the  most  met- 
tlesome horse  he  could  get,  when  but  an  imp  no 
bigger  than  themselves,  and  make  it  carrj^  him 
half  over  the  county  in  a  morning,  and  join  the 
hunters  when  there  were  any  out, — and  yet  he 
loved  the  old  great  house  and  gardens  too,  but 
had  too  much  spirit  to  be  always  pent  up  within 
their  boundaries, — and  how  their  uncle  grew  up 
to  man's  estate  as  brave  as  he  was  handsome,  to 
the  admiration  of  every  body,  but  of  their  great- 
grandmother  Field  most  especially  ;  and  how 
he  used  to  carry  me  upon  his  back  when  I  was 
a  lame-footed  boy — for  he  was  a  good  bit  older 


226  jeseags  ot  JEUa 

than  me — many  a  mile  when  I  could  not  walk 
for  pain  ; — and  how  in  after-life  he  became 
lame-footed  too,  and  I  did  not  always  (I  fear) 
make  allowances  enough  for  him  when  he  was 
impatient  and  in  pain,  nor  remember  sufi&cient- 
ly  how  considerate  he  had  been  to  me  when  I 
was  lame-footed ;  and  how,  when  he  died, 
though  he  had  not  been  dead  an  hour,  i1 
seemed  as  if  he  had  died  a  great  while  ago,  sucl 
a  distance  there  is  betwixt  life  and  death  ;  and^ 
how  I  bore  his  death,  as  I  thought,  pretty  well 
at  first,  but  afterwards  it  haunted  and  haunted 
me  ;  and  though  I  did  not  cry  or  take  it  to 
heart  as  some  do,  and  as  I  think  he  would  have 
done  if  I  had  died,  yet  I  missed  him  all  day 
long,  and  knew  not  till  then  how  much  I  had 
loved  him.  I  missed  his  kindness,  and  I  missed 
his  crossness,  and  wished  him  to  be  alive  again, 
to  be  quarrelling  with  him  (for  we  quarrelled 
sometimes),  rather  than  not  have  him  again, 
and  was  uneasy  without  him,  as  he  their  poor 
uncle  must  have  been  when  the  doctor  took  off 
his  limb.  Here  the  children  fell  a-crj'ing,  and 
asked  if  their  little  mourning  which  they  had 
on  was  not  for  Uncle  John,  and  they  looked  up, 
and  prayed  me  not  to  go  on  about  their  uncle, 
but  to  tell  them  some  stories  about  their  pretty 
dead  mother.  Then  I  told  how,  for  seven  long 
years,  in  hope  sometimes,  sometimes  in  despair. 


©ceamsCbllOren ;  B  IRever^       227 

yet  persisting  ever,  I  courted  the  fair  Alice 
W n  ;  and,  as  much  as  children  could  under- 
stand, I  explained  to  them  what  coyness,  and 
difiSculty,  and  denial  meant  in  maidens, — when 
suddenly,  turning  to  Alice,  the  soul  of  the  first 
Alice  looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a  reality 
of  representment,  that  I  became  in  doubt  which 
of  them  stood  there  before  me,  or  whose  that 
bright  hair  was  ;  and  while  I  stood  gazing,  both 
the  children  gradually  grew  fainter  to  my  view, 
receding,  and  still  receding,  till  nothing  at  last 
but  two  mournful  features  were  seen  in  the 
uttermost  distance,  which,  without  speech, 
strangely  impressed  upon  me  the  effects  of 
speech  :  "  We  are  not  of  Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor 
are  we  children  at  all.  The  children  of  Alice 
call  Bartrum  father.  We  are  nothing ;  less 
than  nothing,  and  dreams.  We  are  only  what 
might  have  been,  and  must  wait  upon  the 
tedious  shores  of  the  Lethe  millions  of  ages  be- 
fore we  have  existence,  and  a  name  "  ; — and  im- 
mediately awaking,  I  found  myself  quietly 
seated  in  my  bachelor  arm-chair,  where  I  had 
fallen  asleep,  with  the  faithful  Bridget  un- 
changed by  my  side, — but  John  L.  (or  James 
Elia)  was  gone  forever. 


DISTANT  CORRESPONDENTS. 


IN  A  I^ETTER  TO   B.    F.,  ESQ.,  AT  SYDNEY,  NEW 
SOUTH  WAI.es. 


M" 


DEAR  F.  : — When  I  think  how  welcome 
the  sight  of  a  letter  from  the  world  where 
you  were  born  must  be  to  you  in  that  strange 
one  to  which  you  have  been  transplanted,  I 
feel  some  compunctious  visitings  at  my  long 
silence.  But,  indeed,  it  is  no  easy  effort  to  set 
about  a  correspondence  at  our  distance.  The 
weary  world  of  waters  between  us  oppresses  the 
imagination.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  a 
scrawl  of  mine  should  ever  stretch  across  it.  It 
is  a  sort  of  presumption  to  expect  that  one's 
thoughts  should  live  so  far.  It  is  like  writing 
for  posterity ;  and  reminds  me  of  one  of  Mrs. 
Rowe's  superscriptions,  "  Alcander  to  Strephon 
in  the  Shades."  Cowley's  Post- Angel  is  no 
more  than  would  be  expedient  in  such  an  inter- 
course. One  drops  a  packet  at  Lombard  Street, 
and  in  twenty-four  hours  a  friend  in  Cumber- 


Blstant  Correspondents  229 


land  gets  it  as  fresh  as  if  it  came  in  ice.  It  is 
only  like  whispering  through  a  long  trumpet. 
But  suppose  a  tube  let  down  from  the  moon, 
with  yourself  at  one  end,  and  the  man  at  the 
other  ;  it  would  be  some  balk  to  the  spirit  of 
conversation,  if  you  knew  the  dialogue  ex- 
changed with  that  interesting  theosophist  would 
take  two  or  three  revolutions  of  a  higher  lumin- 
ary in  its  passage.  Yet  for  aught  I  know,  you 
may  be  some  parasangs  nigher  that  primitive 
idea — Plato's  man — than  we  in  England  here 
have  the  honor  to  reckon  ourselves. 

Epistolary  matter  usually  compriseth  three 
topics  :  news,  sentiment,  and  puns.  In  the  lat- 
ter I  include  all  non-serious  subjects  ;  or  sub- 
jects serious  in  themselves,  but  treated  after  my 
fashion,  non-seriously.  And  first,  for  news.  In 
them  the  most  desirable  circumstance,  I  suppose, 
is  that  they  shall  be  true.  But  what  security 
can  I  have  that  what  I  now  send  you  for  truth 
shall  not,  before  you  get  it,  unaccountably 
turn  into  a  lie  ?  For  instance,  our  mutual  friend 
P.  is  at  this  present  writing — my  Now — in  good 
health,  and  enjoys  a  fair  share  of  worldly  repu- 
tation. You  are  glad  to  hear  it.  This  is  natural 
and  friendly.  But  at  this  present  reading — your 
Xoui — he  may  possibly  be  in  the  Bench,  or 
going  to  be  hanged,  which  in  reason  ought  to 
abate  something  of  your  transport  (z.  e.,  at  hear- 


230  JBeea^e  ot  J6l(a 

ing  he  was  -well,  etc.),  or  at  least  considerably 
to  modify  it.  I  am  going  to  the  play  this  even- 
ing, to  have  a  laugh  with  Mundcn.  You  have 
no  theatre,  I  think  you  told  me,  in  your  land  of 

d d  realities.     You  naturally  hck  your  lips 

and  envy  me  my  felicity.  Think  but  a  moment, 
and  you  will  correct  the  hateful  emotion.  Why 
it  is  Sunday  morning  with  you,  and  1823.  This 
confusion  of  tenses,  this  grand  solecism  of  two 
pi'-esents^  is  in  a  degree  common  to  all  postage. 
But  if  I  sent  you  word  to  Bath  or  Devizes,  that 
I  was  expecting  the  aforesaid  treat  this  evening, 
though  at  the  moment  you  received  the  intelli- 
gence my  full  feast  of  fun  would  be  over,  yet 
there  would  be  for  a  day  or  two  after,  as  you 
would  well  know,  a  smack,  a  relish  left  upon 
my  mental  palate,  which  would  give  rational 
encouragement  for  you  to  foster,  a  portion,  at 
least,  of  the  disagreeable  passion  which  it  was 
in  part  my  intention  to  produce.  But  ten 
months  hence,  your  envy  or  your  sympathy 
would  be  as  useless  as  a  passion  spent  upon  the 
dead.  Not  only  does  truth,  in  these  long  inter- 
vals unessence  herself,  but  (what  is  harder)  one 
cannot  venture  a  crude  fiction,  for  the  fear  that 
it  may  ripen  into  a  truth  upon  the  voyage. 
What  a  wdld  improbable  banter  I  put  upon  you 
some  three  j^ears  since — of  Will  Weatherall 
having  married  a  servant-maid !     I   remember 


Bistant  Correspondents  231 

gravely  consulting  you  how  we  were  to  receive 
her — for  Will's  wife  was  in  no  case  to  be  re- 
jected ;  and  your  no  less  serious  replication  in 
the  matter ;  how  tenderly  you  advised  an  ab- 
stemious introduction  of  literary  topics  before 
the  lady,  with  a  caution  not  to  be  too  forward  in 
bringing  on  the  carpet  matters  more  within  the 
sphere  of  her  intelligence ;  your  deliberate  judg- 
ment or  rather  wise  suspension  of  sentence, 
how  far  jacks,  and  spits,  and  mops  could,  with 
propriety,  be  introduced  as  subjects  ;  whether 
the  conscious  avoiding  of  all  such  matters  in 
discourse  would  not  have  a  worse  look  than  the 
taking  of  them  casually  in  our  way  ;  in  what 
manner  we  should  carry  ourselves  to  our  maid 
Beck}',  Mrs.  William  Weatherall  being  by ; 
whether  we  should  show  more  delicacy,  and  a 
truer  sense  of  respect  for  Will's  wife,  by  treat- 
ing Becky  with  our  customary  chiding  before 
her,  or  by  an  unusual  deferential  civility  paid 
to  Becky  as  to  a  person  of  great  worth,  but 
thrown  by  the  caprice  of  fate  into  a  humble 
station.  There  were  difficulties,  I  remember, 
on  both  sides,  which  you  did  me  the  favor  to 
state  with  the  precision  of  a  lawyer,  united  to  the 
tenderness  of  a  friend.  I  laughed  in  my  sleeve 
at  your  solemn  pleadings,  when  lo  !  while  I  was 
valuing  myself  upon  this  flam  put  upon  you  in 
New  South  Wales,  the  devil  in  England,  jealous 


232  JEssa^g  of  jeUa 

possibly  of  any  lie-children  not  his  own,  or 
working  after  ray  copy,  has  actually  instigated 
our  friend  (not  three  days  since)  to  the  com- 
mission of  a  matrimony,  which  I  had  only  con- 
jured up  for  your  diversion.  William  Weather- 
all  has  married  Mrs.  Cotterel's  maid.  But  to 
take  it  in  its  truest  sense,  you  will  see,  my  dear 
F.,  that  news  from  me  must  become  history  to 
you ;  which  I  neither  profess  to  write  nor  in- 
deed care  much  for  reading.  No  person,  under 
a  diviner,  can  with  any  prospect  of  veracity, 
conduct  a  correspondence  at  such  an  arm's 
length.  Two  prophets,  indeed,  might  thus  in- 
terchange intelligence  with  effect ;  the  epoch  of 
the  writer  (Habakkuk)  falling  in  with  the  true 
present  time  of  the  receiver  (Daniel) ;  but  then 
we  are  no  prophets. 

Then  as  to  sentiment.  It  fares  little  better 
with  that.  This  kind  of  dish,  above  all,  re- 
quires to  be  sers^ed  up  hot ;  or  sent  off  in  water- 
plates,  that  your  friend  may  have  it  almost  as 
warm  as  yourself.  If  it  have  time  to  cool,  it  is 
the  most  tasteless  of  all  cold  meats.  I  have 
often  smiled  at  a  conceit  of  the  late  Lord  C. 
It  seems  that,  travelling  somewhere  about 
Geneva,  he  came  to  some  pretty  green  spot,  or 
nook,  where  a  willow,  or  something,  hung  so 
fantastically  and  invitingly  over  a  stream — was 
it? — or  a  rock? — no  matter, — but  the  stillness 


distant  Correspondents  233 

and  the  repose,  after  a  weary  journey  't  is  like- 
ly, in  a  languid  moment  of  his  Lordship's  hot, 
restless  life,  so  took  his  fancy  that  he  could 
imagine  no  place  so  proper,  in  the  event  of  his 
death,  to  lay  his  bones  in.  This  was  all  very 
natural  and  excusable  as  a  sentiment,  and 
shows  his  character  in  a  very  pleasing  light. 
But  when  from  a  passing  sentiment  it  came  to 
be  an  act ;  and  when,  by  a  positive  testament- 
ary disposal,  his  remains  were  actually  carried 
all  that  way  from  England  ;  who  was  there, 
some  desperate  sentimentalists  excepted,  that 
did  not  ask  the  question,  Why  could  not  his 
Lordship  have  found  a  spot  as  solitary,  a  nook 
as  romantic,  a  tree  as  green  and  pendent,  with 
a  stream  as  emblematic  to  his  pmnpose,  in  Sur- 
rey, in  Dorset,  or  in  Devon  ?  Conceive  the 
sentiment  boarded  up,  freighted,  entered  at  the 
Custom  House  (startling  the  tide-waiters  with 
the  novelty),  hoisted  into  a  ship.  Conceive  it 
pawed  about  and  handled  between  the  rude 
jests  of  tarpaulin  ruffians, — a  thing  of  its  deli- 
cate texture, — the  salt  bilge  wetting  it  till  it  be- 
came as  vapid  as  a  damaged  lustring.  Suppose 
it  in  material  danger  (mariners  have  some 
superstition  about  sentiments)  of  being  tossed 
over  in  a  fresh  gale  to  some  propitiatory  shark 
(spirit  of  Saint  Gothard,  save  us  from  a  quietus 
so  foreign  to  the  deviser's  purpose  !)  but  it  has 


234  Bsea^s  of  JBUa 

happily  evaded  a  fishy  consummation.  Trace 
it  then  to  its  lucky  landing — at  Lyons  shall  we 
say? — I  have  not  the  map  before  me — jostled 
upon  four  men's  shoulders — baiting  at  this 
town — stopping  to  refresh  at  t'  other  village — 
waiting  a  passport  here,  a  license  there ;  the 
sanction  of  the  magistracy  in  this  district,  the 
concurrence  of  the  ecclesiastics  in  that  canton ; 
till  at  length  it  arrives  at  its  destination,  tired 
out  and  jaded,  from  a  brisk  sentiment,  into  a 
feature  of  silly  pride  or  tawdry,  senseless  affec- 
tation. How  few  sentiments,  my  dear  F.,  I  am 
afraid  we  can  set  down,  in  the  sailor's  phrase, 
as  quite  sea-worthy. 

Lastly,  as  to  the  agreeable  levities,  which, 
though  contemptible  in  bulk,  are  the  twinkling 
corpuscula  which  should  irradiate  a  right 
friendly  epistle, — your  puns  and  small  jests 
are,  I  apprehend,  extremely  circumscribed  in 
their  sphere  of  action.  They  are  so  far  from  a 
capacity  of  being  packed  up  and  sent  beyond 
sea,  they  will  scarce  endure  to  be  transported 
by  hand  from  this  room  to  the  next.  Their 
vigor  is  as  the  instant  of  their  birth.  Their 
nutriment  for  their  brief  existence  is  the  in- 
tellectual atmosphere  of  the  bystanders  ;  or 
this  last  is  the  fine  slime  of  Nilus — the  melior 
lutus — whose  maternal  recipiency  is  as  neces- 
sary as  the  sol  pater  to  their  equivocal  genera- 


2)i6tant  Corre6pon&ents  235 

tion.  A  pun  hath  a  hearty  kind  of  present  ear- 
kissing  smack  with  it  ;  you  can  no  more  trans- 
mit it  in  its  pristine  flavor,  than  you  can  send  a 
kiss.  Have  you  not  tried  in  some  instances  to 
palm  off  a  yesterday's  pun  upon  a  gentleman, 
and  has  it  answered  ?  Not  but  it  was  new  to 
his  hearing,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  come  new 
from  you.  It  did  not  hitch  in.  It  was  like 
picking  up  at  a  village  ale-house  a  two-day's- 
old  newspaper.  You  have  not  seen  it  before, 
but  you  resent  the  stale  thing  as  an  affront. 
This  sort  of  merchandise  above  all  requires  a 
quick  return.  A  pun,  and  its  recognitory 
laugh,  must  be  coinstantaneous.  The  one  is 
the  brisk  lightning,  the  other  the  fierce  thun- 
der. A  moment's  interval,  and  the  link  is 
snapped.  A  pun  is  reflected  from  a  friend's 
face  as  from  a  mirror.  Who  would  consult 
his  sweet  visnomy,  if  the  polished  surface  were 
two  or  three  minutes  (not  to  speak  of  twelve 
months,  my  dear  F.)  in  giving  back  its  copy  ? 

I  cannot  image  to  myself  whereabout  you 
are.  When  I  try  to  fix  it,  Peter  Wilkin's 
island  comes  across  me.  Sometimes  you  seem 
to  be  in  the  Hades  of  Thieves.  I  see  Diogenes 
prying  among  you  with  his  perpetual  fruitless 
lantern.  What  must  you  be  willing  by  this 
time  to  give  for  the  sight  of  an  honest  man  ! 
You  must  almost  have  forgotten  how  we  look. 


236  iBesa^e  of  Blia 

And  tell  me,  what  your  Sydneyites  do  ?  are 
they  th  .  .  V  .  ng  all  day  long  ?  Merciful 
heaven  !  what  property  can  stand  against  such 
depredation  !  The  kangaroos — your  Aborigines 
— do  they  keep  their  primitive  simplicity  un- 
Europe  tainted,  with  those  little  short  fore 
puds,  looking  like  a  lesson  framed  by  nature  to 
the  pickpocket !  Marry,  for  diving  into  fobs 
they  are  rather  lamely  provided,  a  priori  ;  but 
if  the  hue-and-cry  were  once  up,  they  would 
show  us  as  fair  a  pair  of  hind-shifters  as  the  ex- 
pertest  locomotor  in  the  colony.  We  hear  the 
most  improbable  tales  at  this  distance.  Pray, 
is  it  true  that  the  young  Spartans  among  you 
are  born  with  six  fingers,  which  spoils  their 
scanning?  It  must  look  very  odd;  but  use 
reconciles.  For  their  scansion,  it  is  less  to  be 
regretted,  for  if  they  take  it  into  their  heads  to 
be  poets,  it  is  odds  but  they  turn  out,  the 
greater  part  of  them,  vile  plagiarists.  Is  there 
much  difference  to  see,  too,  between  the  son  of 
a  th  .  .  f,  and  the  grandson  ?  or  where  does  the 
taint  stop  ?  Do  you  bleach  in  three  or  in  four 
geuerations  ?  I  have  many  questions  to  put, 
but  ten  Delphic  voyages  can  be  made  in 
a  shorter  time  than  it  wnll  take  to  satisfy 
my  scruples.  Do  you  grow  your  own 
hemp?  What  is  your  staple  trade, — exclusive 
of   the    national  profession,    I    mean?     Your 


Distant  Correspondents  237 

locksmiths,  I  take  it,  are  some  of  your  great 
capitalists. 

I  am  insensibly  chatting  to  you  as  familiarly 
as  when  we  used  to  exchange  good-morrows 
out  of  our  old  contiguous  windows,  in  pump- 
famed  Hare  Court  in  the  Temple.  Why  did  you 
ever  leave  that  quiet  corner  ?  Why  did  I  ? — with 
its  complement  of  four  poor  elms,  from  whose 
smoke-dyed  barks,  the  theme  of  jesting  rural- 
ists,  I  picked  my  first  lady-birds  !  M}-  heart  is 
as  dry  as  that  spring  sometimes  proves  in  a 
thirsty  August,  when  I  revert  to  the  space  that 
is  between  us  ;  a  length  of  passage  enough  to 
render  obsolete  the  phrases  of  our  English 
letters  before  they  can  reach  you.  But  while  I 
talk,  I  think  you  hear  me, — thoughts  dallying 
with  vain  surmise, — 

Aye  me !  while  these  the  seas  and  sounding  shores 
Hold  far  away. 

Come  back,  before  I  am  grown  into  a  very 
old  man,  so  as  you  shall  hardly  know  me. 
Come,  before  Bridget  walks  on  crutches.  Girls 
whom  you  left  children  have  become  sage  ma- 
trons while  you  are  tarr>-ing  there.  The  bloom- 
ing Miss  W^ r  (you  remember  Sally  W" r) 

called  upon  us  j-esterday,  an  aged  crone.  Folks, 
whom  you  knew,  die  off  every  year.  Formerly, 
I  thought  that  death  was  wearing  out, — I  stood 


238 


Bseai^s  of  Blla 


ramparted  about  so  with  many  healthy  friends. 
The  departure  of  J.  W.,  two  springs  back,  cor- 
rected my  delusion.  Since  then  the  old  divorce 
has  been  busy.  If  you  do  not  make  haste  to 
return  there  will  be  little  left  to  greet  you,  of 
me,  or  mine. 


THE  PRAISE  OF  CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS. 


I  LIKE  to  meet  a  sweep — -understand  me — 
not  a  grown  sweeper, — old  chimney-sweep- 
ers are  by  no  means  attractive, — but  one  of 
those  tender  novices,  blooming  through  their 
first  nigritude,  the  maternal  washings  not  quite 
effaced  from  the  cheek, — such  as  come  forth 
with  the  dawn,  or  somewhat  earlier,  with  their 
little  professional  notes  sounding  like  the  peep 
peep  of  a  young  sparrow  ;  or  liker  to  the  matin 
lark  should  I  pronounce  them,  in  their  aerial 
ascents  not  seldom  anticipating  the  sunrise  ? 

I  have  a  kindly  yearning  towards  these  dim 
specks — ^poor  blots — innocent  blacknesses. 

I  reverence  these  young  Africans  of  our  own 
growth — these  almost  clergy  imps,  who  sport 
their  cloth  without  assumption  ;  and  from  their 
little  pulpits  (the  tops  of  chimneys),  in  the 
nipping  air  of  a  December  morning,  preach  a 
lesson  of  patience  to  mankind. 

When  a  child,  what  a  mj-sterious  pleasure  it 


240  iBssa^e  ot  iBlia. 

was  to  witness  their  operation  !  to  see  a  chit 
no  bigger  than  one's  self,  enter,  one  knew  not 
by  what  process,  into  what  seemed  the  fauces 
Averni, — to  pursue  him  in  imagination,  as  he 
went  sounding  on  through  so  many  dark  sti- 
fling caverns,  horrid  shades  ! — to  shudder  with 
the  idea  that  "  now,  surely,  he  must  be  lost 
forever  !  " — to  revive  at  hearing  his  feeble  shout 
of  discovered  delight, — and  then  (O  fulness  of 
delight !)  running  out  of  doors,  to  come  just  in 
time  to  see  the  sable  phenomenon  emerge  in 
safety,  the  brandished  weapon  of  his  art  victo- 
rious like  some  flag  waved  over  a  conquered 
citadel !  I  seem  to  remember  having  been  told 
that  a  bad  sweep  was  once  left  in  a  stack  with 
his  brush,  to  indicate  which  way  the  wind  blew. 
It  was  an  awful  spectacle,  certainly  ;  not  much 
unlike  the  old  stage  direction  in  Macbeth,  where 
the  "Apparition  of  a  child  crowned,  with  a  tree 
in  his  hand,  rises." 

Reader,  if  thou  meetest  one  of  these  small 
gentry  in  thy  early  rambles,  it  is  good  to  give 
him  a  penny.  It  is  better  to  give  him  twopence. 
If  it  be  starving  weather,  and  to  the  proper 
troubles  of  his  hard  occupation,  a  pair  of  kibed 
heels  (no  unusual  accompaniment)  be  super- 
added, the  demand  on  thy  humanity  will  surely 
rise  to  a  tester. 

There  is  a  composition,  the  groundwork  of 


Zbc  ipraise  of  CbimnevsSvvcepere    241 

which  I  have  understood  to  be  the  sweet  wood 
yclept  sassafras.  This  wood,  boiled  down  to  a 
kind  of  tea,  and  tempered  \vnth  an  infusion  of 
milk  and  sugar,  hath  to  some  tastes  a  delicacy 
beyond  the  China  luxury.  I  know  not  how 
thy  palate  may  relish  it  ;  for  myself,  with  every 
deference  to  the  judicious  Mr.  Read,  who  hath 
time  out  of  mind  kept  open  a  shop  (the  only 
one  he  avers  in  London)  for  the  vending  of 
this  "wholesome  and  pleasant  beverage,"  on 
the  south  side  of  Fleet  Street,  as  thou  ap- 
proachest  Bridge  Street — the  only  Salopian 
house — I  have  never  ventured  to  dip  my  own 
particular  lip  in  a  basin  of  his  commended  in- 
gredients— a  cautious  premonition  to  the  olfac- 
tories constantly  whispering  to  me,  that  my 
stomach  must  infallibly,  with  all  due  courtesy, 
decline  it.  Yet  I  have  seen  palates,  otherwise 
not  uninstructed  in  dietetical  elegancies,  sup  it 
up  with  avidity. 

I  know  not  by  what  particular  conformation 
of  the  organ  it  happens,  but  I  have  always 
found  that  this  composition  is  surprisingly 
gratifying  to  the  palate  of  a  young  chimney- 
sweeper,— whether  the  oily  particles  (sassafras  is 
slightly  oleaginous)  do  attenuate  and  soften 
the  fuliginous  concretions,  which  are  some- 
times found  (in  dissections)  to  adhere  to  the 
roof  of  the  mouth  in  these  unfledged  practition- 


242  Besags  of  JElla 

ers  ;  or  whether  Nature,  sensible  that  she  had 
mingled  too  much  of  bitter  wood  in  the  lot  of 
these  raw  victims,  caused  to  grow  out  of  the 
earth  her  sassafras  for  a  sweet  lenitive  ;— but  so 
it  is,  that  no  possible  taste  or  odor  to  the  senses 
of  a  young  chimney-sweeper  can  convey  a  deli- 
cate excitement  comparable  to  this  mixture. 
Being  penniless,  they  will  yet  hang  their  black 
heads  over  the  ascending  steam,  to  gratify  one 
sense  if  possible,  seemingly  no  less  pleased 
than  those  domestic  animals — cats — when  they 
purr  over  a  new-found  sprig  of  valerian.  There 
is  something  more  in  these  sympathies  than  phi- 
losophy can  inculcate. 

Now  albeit  Mr.  Read  boasteth,  not  without 
reason,  that  this  is  the  only  Salopian  house ; 
yet  be  it  known  to  thee,  reader, — if  thou  art 
one  who  keepest  what  are  called  good  hours, 
thou  art  happily  ignorant  of  the  fact — he  hath 
a  race  of  industrious  imitators,  who  from  stalls, 
and  under  open  sky,  dispense  the  same  savory 
mess  to  humbler  customers,  at  that  dead  time 
of  the  dawn,  when  (as  extremes  meet)  the  rake, 
reeling  home  from  his  midnight  cups,  and  the 
hard-handed  artisan  leaving  his  bed  to  resume 
the  premature  labors  of  the  day,  jostle,  not  un- 
frequently  to  the  manifest  disconcerting  of  the 
former,  for  the  honors  of  the  pavement.  It  is 
the  time  when,  in  summer,  between  the  expired 


Zbc  praise  ot  Cblmner^Sweepers    243 

and  the  not  yet  relumined  kitchen-fires,  the 
kennels  of  our  fair  metropolis  give  forth  their 
least  satisfactory  odors.  The  rake,  who  wish- 
eth  to  dissipate  his  o'er-night  vapors  in  grateful 
coffee,  curses  the  ungenial  fume  as  he  passeth  ; 
but  the  artisan  stops  to  taste,  and  blesses  the 
fragrant  breakfast. 

This  is  saloop — the  precocious  herb-woman's 
darling, — the  delight  of  the  earl}^  gardener, 
who  transports  his  smoking  cabbages  by  break 
of  day  from  Hammersmith  to  Covent  Garden's 
famed  piazzas, — the  delight,  and  oh  !  I  fear, 
too  often  the  envy,  of  the  unpennied  sweep. 
Him  shouldst  thou  haply  encounter,  with  his 
dim  visage  pendent  over  the  grateful  steam, 
regale  him  with  a  sumptuous  basin  (it  will  cost 
thee  but  three  half-pennies)  and  a  slice  of  deli- 
cate bread  and  butter  (an  added  half-penny) — 
so  may  thy  culinary  fires,  eased  of  the  o'er- 
charged  secretions  from  thy  worse-placed  hospi- 
talities, curl  up  a  lighter  volume  to  the  welkin, 
— so  may  the  descending  soot  never  taint  thy 
costly  well-ingredienced  soups, — nor  the  odious 
cr}-,  quick-reaching  from  street  to  street,  of  the 
fifed  chi)n7iey,  invite  the  rattling  engines  from 
adjacent  parishes,  to  disturb  for  a  casual  scintil- 
lation thy  peace  and  pocket ! 

I  am  by  nature  extremely  susceptible  of  street 
affronts  ;  the  jeers  and  taunts  of  the  populace  ; 


244  jEsea^s  of  Blia 


the  low-bred  triumph  they  display  over  the 
casual  trip,  or  splashed  stocking,  of  a  gentle- 
man. Yet  can  I  endure  the  jocularity  of  a 
young  sweep  with  something  more  than  for- 
giveness. In  the  last  winter  but  one,  pacing 
along  Cheapside  with  my  accustomed  precipi- 
tation when  I  walked  westward,  a  treacherous 
slide  brought  me  upon  my  back  in  an  instant. 
I  scrambled  up  with  pain  and  shame  enough, — 
yet  outwardly  trying  to  face  it  down,  as  if 
nothing  had  happened, — when  the  roguish  grin 
of  one  of  these  young  wits  encountered  me. 
There  he  stood,  pointing  me  out  with  his  dusky 
finger  to  the  mob,  and  to  a  poor  woman  (I  sup- 
pose his  mother)  in  particular,  till  the  tears  for 
the  exquisiteness  of  the  fun  (so  he  thought  it) 
w^orked  themselves  out  at  the  corners  of  his 
poor  red  eyes,  red  from  many  a  previous  weep- 
ing, and  soot-inflamed,  yet  twinkling  through 
all  with  such  a  joy,  snatched  out  of  desolation, 
that  Hogarth — but  Hogarth  has  got  him  al- 
ready (how  could  he  miss  him  ?)  in  the  March 
to  Finchley,  grinning  at  the  pieman, — there  he 
stood,  as  he  stands  in  the  picture,  irremovable, 
as  if  the  jest  was  to  last  forever, — with  such  a 
maximum  of  glee,  and  minimum  of  mischief,  in 
his  mirth — for  the  grin  of  a  genuine  sweep  hath 
absolutely  no  malice  in  it — that  I  could  have 
been  content,  if  the  honor  of  a  gentleman  might 


Zhc  praise  ot  Cbimnc^^Swcepers    245 

endure  it,  to  have  remained  his  butt  and  his 
mockery  till  midnight. 

I  am  by  theor\^  obdurate  to  the  seductiveness 
of  what  are  called  a  fine  set  of  teeth.  Every  pair 
of  rosy  lips  (the  ladies  must  pardon  me)  is  a 
casket  presumably  holding  such  jewels  ;  but, 
methinks,  they  should  take  leave  to  ''air" 
them  as  frugally  as  possible.  The  fine  lady,  or 
fine  gentleman,  who  show  me  their  teeth,  show 
me  bones.  Yet  must  I  confess,  that  from  the 
mouth  of  a  true  sweep  a  display  (even  to  osten- 
tation) of  those  white  and  shining  ossifications, 
strikes  me  as  an  agreeable  anomaly  in  manners, 
and  an  allowable  piece  of  foppery.     It  is,  as 

when 

A  sable  cloud 
Turns  forth  her  silver  lining  on  the  night. 

It  is  like  some  remnant  of  gentry  not  quite  ex- 
tinct ;  a  badge  of  better  days  ;  a  hint  of  nobility 
— and,  doubtless,  under  the  obscuring  darkness 
and  double  night  of  their  forlorn  disguisement, 
oftentimes  lurketh  good  blood,  and  gentle  con- 
ditions, derived  from  lost  ancestry,  and  a  lapsed 
pedigree.  The  premature  apprenticements  of 
these  tender  victims  give  but  too  much  encour- 
agement, I  fear,  to  clandestine  and  almost  in- 
fantile abductions  ;  the  seeds  of  civility  and  true 
courtesy,  so  often  discernible  in  these  young 
grafts    (not    otherwise    to  be   accounted   for). 


246  JEssa^s  ot  }£lla 


plainly  hint  at  some  forced  adoptions;  many 
noble  Rachels,  mourning  for  their  children, 
even  in  our  days,  countenance  the  fact ;  the  tales 
of  fairy-spiriting  may  shadow  a  lamentable 
verity,  and  the  recovery  of  the  young  Montagu 
be  but  a  solitary  instance  of  good  fortune  out  of 
many  irreparable  and  hopeless  de filiations. 

In  one  of  the  state-beds  at  Arundel  Castle,  a 
few  years  since — under  a  ducal  canopy — (that 
seat  of  the  Howards  is  an  object  of  curiosity  to 
visitors,  chiefly  for  its  beds,  in  which  the  late 
duke  was  especially  a  connoisseur) — encircled 
with  curtains  of  delicatest  crimson,  with  starry 
coronets  inwoven — folded  between  a  pair  of 
sheets  whiter  and  softer  than  the  lap  where 
Venus  lulled  Ascanius  —  was  discovered  by 
chance,  after  all  methods  of  search  had  failed, 
at  noonday,  fast  asleep,  a  lost  chimney-sweeper. 
The  little  creature,  having  somehow  confounded 
his  passage  among  the  intricacies  of  those  lord- 
ly chimneys,  by  some  unknown  aperture  had 
alighted  upon  this  magnificent  chamber ;  and, 
tired  with  his  tedious  explorations,  was  unable 
to  resist  the  delicious  invitement  to  repose, 
which  he  there  saw  exhibited ;  so  creeping  be- 
tween the  sheets  very  quietly,  laid  his  black 
head  upon  the  pillow,  and  slept  like  a  young 
Howard. 

Such  is  the  account  given  to  the  visitors  at 


^be  praise  ot  Cbimncv^Sweepers    247 

the  Castle.  But  I  cannot  help  seeming  to  per- 
ceive a  confirmation  of  what  I  have  just  hinted 
at  in  this  story,  A  high  instinct  was  at  work 
in  the  case,  or  I  am  mistaken.  Is  it  probable 
that  a  poor  child  of  that  description,  with  what- 
ever weariness  he  might  be  visited,  would  have 
ventured,  under  such  a  penalty  as  he  would  be 
taught  to  expect,  to  uncover  the  sheets  of  a 
duke's  bed,  and  deliberately  to  lay  himself 
down  between  them,  when  the  rug,  or  the  car- 
pet, presented  an  obvious  couch,  still  far  above 
his  pretensions — is  this  probable,  I  would  ask, 
if  the  great  power  of  nature,  which  I  con- 
tend for,  had  not  been  manifested  within  him, 
prompting  to  the  adventure?  Doubtless  this 
young  nobleman  (for  such  my  mind  misgives 
me  that  he  must  be)  was  allured  by  some  mem- 
ory, not  amounting  to  full  consciousness,  of  his 
condition  in  infancy,  when  he  was  used  to  be 
lapped  by  his  mother,  or  his  nurse,  in  just  such 
sheets  as  he  there  found,  into  which  he  was  now 
but  creeping  back  as  into  his  proper  Incunabula, 
and  resting-place.  By  no  other  theory  than  by 
this  sentiment  of  a  preexistent  state  (as  I  may 
call  it)  can  I  explain  a  deed  so  venturous,  and, 
indeed,  upon  any  other  system  so  indecorous,  in 
this  tender,  but  unseasonable,  sleeper. 

My  pleasant  friend  Jem  White   was  so  im- 
pressed by  a  belief  of  metamorphoses  like  this 


248  Bssags  ot  jeUa 

frequently  taking  place,  that  in  some  sort  to 
reverse  the  wrongs  of  fortune  in  these  poor 
changelings,  he  instituted  an  annual  feast  of 
chimne3'-s\veepers,  at  which  it  was  his  pleasure 
to  officiate  as  host  and  waiter.  It  was  a  solemn 
supper  held  in  Smithfield,  upon  the  yearly 
return  of  the  fair  of  St.  Bartholomew.  Cards 
were  issued  a  week  before  to  the  master-sweeps 
in  and  about  the  metropolis,  confining  the  invi- 
tation to  their  younger  fry.  Now  and  then  an 
elderly  stripling  would  get  in  among  us,  and  be 
good-naturedly  winked  at ;  but  our  main  body 
were  infantry.  One  unfortunate  wight,  indeed, 
who,  relying  upon  his  dusky  suit,  had  intruded 
himself  into  our  party,  but  by  tokens  was  provi- 
dentially discovered  in  time  to  be  no  chimney- 
sweeper, (all  is  not  soot  which  looks  so,)  was 
quoited  out  of  the  presence  with  universal 
indignation,  as  not  having  on  the  wedding  gar- 
ment ;  but  in  general  the  greatest  harmony  pre- 
vailed. The  place  chosen  was  a  convenient  spot 
among  the  pens,  at  the  north  side  of  the  fair, 
not  so  far  distant  as  to  be  imper\dous  to  the 
agreeable  hubbub  of  that  vanity  ;  but  remote 
enough  not  to  be  ob\dous  to  the  interruption  of 
every  gaping  spectator  in  it.  The  guests  assem- 
bled about  seven.  In  those  little  temporary 
parlors  three  tables  were  spread  with  napery, 
not  so  fine  as  substantial,  and  at  every  board  a 


Zbc  lI^rai6c  of  Cbimnep=S\veeper0    249 

comely  hostess  presided  with  her  pan  of  hissing 
sausages.  The  nostrils  of  the  young  rogues 
dilated  at  the  savor.  James  White,  as  head 
waiter,  had  charge  of  the  first  table  ;  and  my- 
self, with  our  trusty  companion  Bigod,  ordina- 
rily ministered  to  the  other  two.  There  was 
clambering  and  jostling,  you  may  be  sure,  who 
should  get  at  the  first  table, — for  Rochester  in 
his  maddest  days  could  not  have  done  the  hu- 
mors of  the  scene  with  more  spirit  than  my 
friend.  x\fter  some  general  expression  of 
thanks  for  the  honor  the  company  had  done 
him,  his  inaugural  ceremony  was  to  clasp  the 
greasy  waist  of  old  dame  Ursula  (the  fattest  of 
the  three),  that  stood  frjdng  and  fretting,  half- 
blessing,  half-cursing  "the  gentleman,"  and 
imprint  upon  her  chaste  lips  a  tender  salute, 
whereat  the  universal  host  would  set  up  a  shout 
that  tore  the  concave,  while  hundreds  of  grin- 
ning teeth  startled  the  night  with  their  bright- 
ness. Oh,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see  the  sable  younk- 
ers  lick  in  the  unctuous  meat,  with  his  more 
unctuous  sayings, — how  he  would  fit  the  titbits 
to  the  puny  mouths,  reserving  the  lengthier 
links  for  the  seniors, — how  he  would  intercept 
a  morsel  even  in  the  jaws  of  some  young  despe- 
rado, declaring  it  "  must  to  the  pan  again  be 
browned,  for  it  was  not  fit  for  a  gentleman's 
eating," — how  he  would  recom.mend  this  slice 


250  )BB6ti^B  Of  Blia 


of  white  bread,  or  that  piece  of  kissing-crust,  to 
a  tender  juvenile,  advising  them  all  to  have  a 
care  of  cracking  their  teeth,  which  were  their 
best  patrimony, — how  genteelly  he  would  deal 
about  the  small  ale,  as  if  it  were  wine,  naming 
the  brewer,  and  protesting,  if  it  were  not  good, 
he  should  lose  their  custom  ;  with  a  special  rec- 
ommendation to  wipe  the  lip  before  drinking. 
Then  we  had  our  toasts — ' '  The  King  ! ' ' — the 
Cloth," — which,  whether  they  understood  or 
not,  was  equally  diverting  and  flattering; — 
and  for  a  crowning  sentiment,  which  never 
failed,  "May the  Brush  supersede  the  Laurel ! '' 
All  these,  and  fifty  other  fancies,  which  were 
rather  felt  than  comprehended  by  his  guests, 
would  he  utter,  standing  upon  tables,  and  pref- 
acing every  sentiment  with  a  "  Gentlemen,  give 
me  leave  to  propose  so  and  so,"  which  was  a 
prodigious  comfort  to  those  young  orphans  ; 
every  now  and  then  stuffing  into  his  mouth 
(for  it  did  not  do  to  be  squeamish  on  these 
occasions)  indiscriminate  pieces  of  those  reek- 
ing sausages,  which  pleased  them  mightily,  and 
was  the  savoriest  part,  you  may  believe,  of  the 
entertainment. 

Golden  lads  and  lasses  must, 

As  chimney-sweepers,  come  to  dust. 

James  White  is  extinct,  and  with  him  these 
suppers  have  long  ceased.      He  carried  away 


^be  ipraise  of  Cbimne^*S\veeper6    251 

with  him  half  the  fun  of  the  world  when  he 
died — of  my  world  at  least.  His  old  clients 
look  for  him  among  the  pens  ;  and,  missing 
him,  reproach  the  altered  feast  of  St.  Bartho- 
lomew, and  the  glory  of  Smithfield  departed 
forever. 


A    COMPLAINT    OF    THE    DECAY    OF 
BEGGARS  IN  THE  METROPOLIS. 

THE  all-sweeping  besom  of  societarian  refor- 
mation— your  only  modem  Alcides'  club 
to  rid  the  time  of  its  abuses — is  uplift  with 
many-handed  sway  to  extirpate  the  last  flut- 
tering tatters  of  the  bugbear  Mendicity  from 
the  metropolis.  Scrips,  wallets,  bags, — staves, 
dogs,  and  crutches, — the  whole  mendicant  fra- 
ternity with  all  their  baggage,  are  fast  posting 
out  of  the  purlieus  of  this  eleventh  persecution. 
From  the  crowded  crossing,  from  the  corners 
of  streets  and  turnings  of  alleys,  the  parting 
Genius  of  Beggar}^  is  with  "sighing  sent." 

I  do  not  approve  of  this  wholesale  going  to 
work,  this  impertinent  crusado,  or  belliim  ad 
exterminationem,  proclaimed  against  a  species. 
Much  good  might  be  sucked  from  these  Beg- 
gars. 

They  were  the  oldest  and  honorablest  form 
of  pauperism.  Their  appeals  were  to  our  com- 
mon  nature ;    less  revolting  to   an    ingenious 


Xlbc  5)ecai?  of  JBeggars  253 

mind  than  to  be  a  suppliant  to  the  particular 
humors  or  caprice  of  any  fellow-creature,  or  set 
of  fellow-creatures,  parochial  or  societarian. 
Theirs  were  the  only  rates  uninvidious  in  the 
le\y,  ungrudged  in  the  assessment. 

There  was  a  dignity  springing  from  the  very 
depth  of  their  desolation  ;  as  to  be  naked  is  to 
be  so  much  nearer  to  the  being  a  man,  than  to 
go  in  livery. 

The  greatest  spirits  have  felt  this  in  their  re- 
verses ;  and  when  Dyonisius  from  king  turned 
schoolmaster,  do  we  feel  any  thing  towards  him 
but  contempt?  Could  Vandyke  have  made  a 
picture  of  him,  swaying  a  ferula  for  a  sceptre, 
which  would  have  affected  our  minds  with  the 
same  heroic  pity,  the  same  compassionate  ad- 
miration, with  which  we  regard  his  Belisarius 
begging  for  an  odolnm  ?  Would  the  moral 
have  been  more  graceful,  more  pathetic  ? 

The  Blind  Beggar  in  the  legend — the  father 
of  pretty  Bessy — whose  story  doggerel  rhymes 
and  ale-house  signs  cannot  so  degrade  or  atten- 
uate, but  that  some  sparks  of  a  lustrous  spirit 
will  shine  through  the  disguisements, — this 
noble  Earl  of  Cornwall  (as  indeed  he  was)  and 
memorable  sport  of  fortune,  fleeing  from  the 
unjust  sentence  of  his  liege  lord,  stripped  of  all, 
and  seated  on  the  flowering  green  of  Bethnal, 
with  his  more  fresh  and  springing  daughter  by 


254  jEesa^B  ot  J6lia 

his  side,  illumining  his  rags  and  his  beggary, — 
would  the  child  and  parent  have  cut  a  better 
figure  doing  the  honors  of  a  counter,  or  expi- 
ating their  fallen  condition  upon  the  three-foot 
eminence  of  some  sempstering  shopboard  ? 

In  tale  or  history  your  Beggar  is  ever  the  just 
antipode  to  your  King.  The  poets  and  roman- 
cical  writers  (as  dear  Margaret  Newcastle  would 
call  them),  when  they  would  most  sharply  and 
feelingly  paint  a  reverse  of  fortune,  never  stop 
till  they  have  brought  down  their  heio  in  good 
earnest  to  rags  and  the  wallet.  The  depth  of 
the  descent  illustrates  the  height  he  falls  from. 
There  is  no  medium  which  can  be  presented  to 
the  imagination  without  offence.  There  is  no 
breaking  the  fall.  Lear,  thrown  from  his  pal- 
ace, must  divest  him  of  his  garments,  till  he 
answer  "mere  nature";  and  Cresseid,  fallen 
from  a  prince's  love,  must  extend  her  pale 
arms,  pale  with  other  whiteness  than  of  beauty, 
supplicating  lazar  alms  with  bell  and  clap-dish. 

The  Lucian  wits  knew  this  very  well  ;  and, 
with  a  converse  policy,  when  they  would  ex- 
press scorn  of  greatness  without  the  pity,  they 
show  us  an  Alexander  in  the  shades  cobbling 
shoes,  or  a  Semiramis  getting  up  foul  linen. 

How  would  it  sound  in  song,  that  a  great 
monarch  had  declined  his  affections  upon  the 
daughter  of  a  baker  ?  yet,  do  we  feel  the  imagi- 


Cbe  Decas  of  ^Qcg^avB  255 

nation  at  all  violated  when  -we  read  the  "true 
ballad,"  where  King  Cophetua  woos  the  beggar 
maid? 

Pauperism,  pauper,  poor  man,  are  expressions 
of  pity,  but  pity  alloyed  with  contempt.  No 
one  properly  contemns  a  beggar.  Poverty  is  a 
comparative  thing,  and  each  degree  of  it  is 
mocked  by  its  "neighbor  grice."  Its  poor 
rents  and  comings-in  are  soon  summed  up  and 
told.  Its  pretences  to  property  are  almost  ludi- 
crous. Its  pitiful  attempts  to  save  excite  a 
smile.  Ever)'  scornful  companion  can  weigh 
his  trifle-bigger  purse  against  it.  Poor  man  re- 
proaches poor  man  in  the  streets  with  impolitic 
mention  of  his  condition,  his  own  being  a  shade 
better,  while  the  rich  pass  by  and  jeer  at  both. 
No  rascally  comparative  insults  a  beggar,  or 
thinks  of  weighing  purses  with  him.  He  is  not 
in  the  scale  of  comparison.  He  is  not  under 
the  measure  of  property.  He  confessedly 
hath  none,  anymore  than  a  dog  or  a  sheep.  No 
one  twitteth  him  with  ostentation  above  his 
means.  No  one  accuses  him  of  pride,  or  up- 
braideth  him  with  mock  humility.  None  jostle 
with  him  for  the  wall,  or  pick  quarrels  for 
precedency.  No  wealthy  neighbor  seeketh  to 
eject  him  from  his  tenement.  No  man  sues 
him.  No  man  goes  to  law  with  him.  If  I  were 
not    the    independent    gentleman   that   I  am, 


256  je^sa^s  of  BKa 

rather  than  I  would  be  a  retainer  to  the  great, 
a  led  captain,  or  a  poor  relation,  1  would  choose, 
out  of  the  delicacy  and  true  greatness  of  my 
mind,  to  be  a  beggar. 

Rags,  which  are  the  approach  of  poverty,  are 
the  beggar's  robes,  and  graceful  insignia  of  his 
profession,  his  tenure,  his  full  dress,  the  suit  in 
which  he  is  expected  to  show  himself  in  public. 
He  is  never  out  of  the  fashion,  or  limpeth  awk- 
wardly behind  it.  He  is  not  required  to  put  on 
court  mourning.  He  weareth  all  colors,  fearing 
none.  His  costume  hath  undergone  less  change 
than  the  Quaker's.  He  is  the  only  man  in  the 
universe  who  is  not  obliged  to  study  appear- 
ances. The  ups  and  downs  of  the  world  con- 
cern him  no  longer.  He  alone  continueth  in 
one  stay.  The  price  of  stock  or  land  affecteth 
him  not.  The  fluctuations  of  agricultural  or 
commercial  prosperity  touch  him  not,  or  at 
worst  but  change  his  customers.  He  is  not  ex- 
pected to  become  bail  or  surety  for  any  one. 
No  man  troubleth  him  with  questioning  his  re- 
ligion or  politics.  He  is  the  only  free  man  in 
the  universe. 

The  mendicants  of  this  great  city  were  so 
many  of  her  sights,  her  lions.  I  can  no  more 
spare  them  than  I  could  the  Cries  of  London, 
No  comer  of  a  street  is  complete  without  them. 
They  are  as  indispensable  as  the  ballad  singer ; 


tTbe  £)ecas  of  :fiSeggar6  257 

and  in  their  picturesque  attire  as  ornamental  as 
the  signs  of  old  London.  They  were  the  standing 
morals,  emblems,  mementos,  dial-mottoes,  the 
spital  sermons,  the  books  for  children,  the  salu- 
tary checks  and  pauses  to  the  high  and  rushing 
tide  of  greasy  citizenry  : 

1,00k 
Upon  that  poor  and  broken  bankrupt  there. 

Above  all,  those  old  blind  Tobits  that  used  to 
line  the  wall  of  Lincoln's-Inn  Garden,  before 
modern  fastidiousness  had  expelled  them,  cast- 
ing up  their  ruined  orbs  to  catch  a  ray  of  pity, 
and  (if  possible)  of  light,  with  their  faithful  Dog 
Guide  at  their  feet, — whither  are  they  fled  ?  or 
into  what  corners,  blind  as  themselves,  have 
they  been  driven,  out  of  the  w^holesome  air  and 
sun-warmth  ;  immersed  between  four  walls,  in 
what  withering  poorhouse  do  they  endure  the 
penalty  of  double  darkness,  where  the  chink 
of  the  dropt  half-penny  no  more  consoles  their 
forlorn  bereavement,  far  from  the  sound  of  the 
cheerful  and  hope-stirring  tread  of  the  passen- 
ger ?  Where  hang  their  useless  staves  ;  and 
who  will  farm  their  dogs  ?     Have  the  overseers 

of  St.  L caused  them  to  be  shot  ?  or  were 

they  tied   up   in    sacks,    and   dropt    into    the 

Thames,  at  the  suggestion  of  B ,  the  mild 

rector  of — -- —  ? 


258  JBeea^s  of  JBlia 

Well  fare  the  soul  of  unfastidious  Vincent 
Bourne,  most  classical,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
most  English  of  the  Latinists  I — who  has  treated 
of  this  human  and  quadrupedal  alliance,  this 
dog  and  man  friendship,  in  the  sweetest  of  his 
poems,  the  "Epitaphium  in  Canem,"  or  "Dog's 
Epitaph."  Reader,  peruse  it,  and  say  if  cus- 
tomary sights,  which  could  call  up  such  gentle 
poetry  as  this,  were  of  a  nature  to  do  more  harm 
or  good  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  passengers 
through  the  daily  thoroughfares  of  a  vast  and 
busy  metropolis. 

Pauperis  hie  Iri  requieseo  Lyciscus,  herilis, 
Dum  vixi,  tutela  vigil  coluraenque  senectse, 
Dux  cseco  fidus  :  nee,  me  ducente,  solebat, 
Praetenso  hinc  atque  hinc  baculo,  per  iniqua  locorum 
Incertam  explorare  viam  ;  sed  fila  secutus, 
Quae  dubios  regerent  passds,  vestigia  tuta 
Fixit  iuoffenso  gressu  ;  gelidumque  sedile 
In  nudo  nactus  saxo,  qu^  prsetereuntium 
Unda  frequens  confluxit,  ibi  miserisque  tenebras, 
Ivamentis,  noctemque  oculis  ploravit  obortam. 
Ploravit  nee  frustra  ;  obolum  dedit  alter  et  alter, 
Queis  corda  et  mentem  indiderat  natura  benignam. 
Ad  latus  interea  jaeui  sopitus  herile, 
Vel  mediis  vigil  in  somnis  ;  ad  herilia  jussa 
Auresque  atque  animum  arrectus,  seu  frustula  amic^ 
Porrexit  sociasque  dapes,  seu  longa  diei 
Taedia  perpessus,  reditum  sub  nocte  parabat. 
Hi  mores,  haec  vita  fuit,  dum  fata  sinebant, 
Dum  neque  languebam  morbis,  uec  inerte  senect^  ; 
Qua;  tandem  obrepsit,  veterique  satellite  caecum 
Orbavit  dominum  :  prisci  sed  gratia  facti 


Zhc  H)eca\2  of  Beggavs  259 

Ne  tota  intereat,  longos  delecta  per  annos, 
Exiguum  hunc  Inis  tumulum  de  cespite  fecit, 
Etsi  inopis,  non  iugratae,  munuscula  dextrae  ; 
Carmine  signavitque  brevi,  dominumque  canemque 
Quod  memoret,  fidumqiie  canetn  dominumque  benig- 
num. 

Poor  Irus'  faithful  wolf-dog  here  I  lie, 

That  wont  to  tend  my  old  blind  master's  steps, 

His  guide  and  guard  :  nor,  while  my  service  lasted, 

Had  he  occasion  for  that  staff,  with  which 

He  now  goes  picking  out  his  path  in  fear 

Over  the  highways  and  crossings  ;  but  would  plant, 

Safe  in  the  conduct  of  my  friendly  string, 

A  firm  foot  forward  still,  till  he  had  reach'd 

His  poor  seat  on  some  stone,  nigh  where  the  tide 

Of  passers-by  in  thickest  confluence  flow'd  : 

To  whom  with  loud  and  passionate  laments 

From  morn  to  eve  his  dark  estate  he  wail'd. 

Nor  wail'd  to  all  in  vain  :  some  here  and  there, 

The  well-disposed  and  good,  their  pennies  gave. 

I  meantime  at  his  feet  obsequious  slept ; 

Not  all-asleep  in  sleep,  but  heart  and  ear 

Prick'd  up  at  his  least  motion,  to  receive 

At  his  kind  hand  my  customary  crumbs, 

And  common  portion  in  his  feast  of  scraps  ; 

Or  when  night  warn'd  us  homeward,  tired  and  spent 

With  our  long  day  and  tedious  beggary. 

These  were  my  manners,  this  my  way  of  life, 
Till  age  and  slow  disease  me  overtook, 
And  sever'd  from  my  sightless  master's  side. 
But  lest  the  grace  of  so  good  deeds  should  die, 
Through  tract  of  years  in  mute  oblivion  lost, 
This  slender  tomb  of  turf  hath  Irus  reared, 
Cheap  monument  of  no  ungrudging  hand. 
And  with  short  verse  inscribed  it  to  attest. 


26o  lEeetixie  ot  lEUti 

In  long  and  lasting  union  to  attest, 
The  virtues  of  the  Beggar  and  his  Dog. 

These  dim  eyes  have  in  vain  explored  for 
some  months  past  a  well-known  figure,  or  part 
of  the  figure  of  a  man,  who  used  to  glide  his 
comely  upper  half  over  the  pavements  of  Lon- 
don, wheeling  along  with  most  ingenious  celer- 
ity upon  a  machine  of  wood  :  a  spectacle  to 
natives,  to  foreigners,  and  to  children.  He  was 
of  a  robust  make,  with  a  florid,  sailor-like  com- 
plexion, and  his  head  was  bare  to  the  storm  and 
sunshine.  He  was  a  natural  curiosity,  a  specu- 
lation to  the  scientific,  a  prodigy  to  the  simple. 
The  infant  would  stare  at  the  mighty  man 
brought  down  to  his  own  level.  The  common 
cripple  would  despise  his  own  pusillanimity, 
viewing  the  hale  stoutness  and  hearty  heart  of 
this  half-limbed  giant.  Few  but  must  have  no- 
ticed him,  for  the  accident  which  brought  him 
low  took  place  during  the  riots  of  1780,  and  he 
has  been  a  groundling  so  long.  He  seemed 
earthborn,  an  Antaeus,  and  to  suck  in  fresh 
vigor  from  the  soil  which  he  neighbored.  He 
was  a  grand  fragment :  as  good  as  an  Elgin 
marble.  The  nature  which  should  have  re- 
cruited his  reft  legs  and  thighs  was  not  lost, 
but  only  retired  into  his  upper  parts,  and  he  was 
half  a  Hercules.  I  heard  a  tremendous  voice 
thundering  and  growling,  as  before  an  earth- 


^be  Deca^  ot  ^Beggars  261 

quake,  and,  casting  down  my  eyes,  it  was  this 
mandrake  reviling  a  steed  that  had  started  at 
his  portentous  appearance.  He  seemed  to  want 
but  his  just  stature  to  have  rent  the  offending 
quadruped  in  shivers.  He  was  as  the  man  part  of 
a  centaur,  from  which  the  horse  half  had  been 
cloven  in  some  dire  Lapithan  controversy.  He 
moved  on,  as  if  he  could  have  made  shift  with 
yet  half  of  the  body-portion  which  was  left  him. 
The  OS  sicblime  was  not  wanting  ;  and  he  threw 
out  yet  a  jolly  countenance  upon  the  heavens. 
Forty-and-two  years  had  he  driven  this  out-of- 
door  trade  ;  and  now  that  his  hair  is  grizzled  in 
the  service,  but  his  good  spirits  noway  impaired, 
because  he  is  not  content  to  exchange  his  free 
air  and  exercise  for  the  restraints  of  a  poor- 
house,  he  is  expiating  his  contumacy  in  one  of 
those  houses  (ironically  christened)  of  Correc- 
tion. 

Was  a  daily  spectacle  like  this  to  be  deemed 
a  nuisance,  which  called  for  legal  interference 
to  remove  ?  or  not  rather  a  salutary  and  a 
touching  object,  to  the  passers-by  in  a  great 
city?  Among  her  shows,  her  museums,  and 
supplies  of  ever-gaping  curiosity  (and  what  else 
but  an  accumulation  of  sights — endless  sights — 
is  a  great  city  ;  or  for  what  else  is  it  desirable  ?) 
was  there  not  room  for  one  Lusus  (not  Na- 
turce,  indeed,  but)  Accidentium  ?    What  if  in 


262  jeega^s  of  Blia 

forty-and-two  years'  going  about,  the  man  had 
scraped  together  enough  to  give  a  portion  to 
his  child  (as  the  rumor  ran),  of  a  few  hundreds, 
— whom  had  he  injured? — whom  had  he  im- 
posed upon?  The  contributors  had  enjoyed 
their  sight  for  their  pennies.  What  if  after 
being  exposed  all  day  to  the  heats,  the  rains, 
and  the  frosts  of  heaven, — shuffling  his  ungainly 
trunk  along  in  an  elaborate  and  painful  mo- 
tion,— he  was  enabled  to  retire  at  night  to  enjoy 
himself  at  a  club  of  his  fellow-cripples  over  a 
dish  of  hot  meat  and  vegetables,  as  the  charge 
was  gravely  brought  against  him  by  a  clergy- 
man deposing  before  a  House  of  Commons' 
Committee, — was  this^  or  was  his  truly  paternal 
consideration,  which  (if  a  fact)  deserved  a  statue 
rather  than  a  whipping-post,  and  is  inconsist- 
ent at  least  with  the  exaggeration  of  nocturnal 
orgies  which  he  has  been  slandered  with, — a 
reason  that  he  should  be  deprived  of  his  chosen, 
harmless,  nay,  edifying  way  of  life,  and  be  com- 
mitted in  hoary  age  for  a  sturdy  vagabond  ? 

There  was  a  Yorick  once,  whom  it  would  not 
have  shamed  to  have  sat  down  at  the  cripple's 
feast,  and  to  have  thrown  in  his  benediction, 
ay,  and  his  mite  too,  for  a  companionable  sym- 
bol.    "  Age,  thou  hast  lost  thy  breed." 

Half  of  these  stories  about  prodigious  for- 
tunes made  by  begging  are  (I  verily  believe) 


Zbc  S)ccai5  of  McQQaxs  263 

misers'  calumnies.  One  was  much  talked  of  in 
the  public  papers  some  time  since,  and  the 
usual  charitable  inferences  deduced.  A  clerk 
in  the  bank  was  surprised  with  the  announce- 
ment of  a  five-hundred-pound  legacy  left  him 
by  a  person  whose  name  he  was  a  stranger  to. 
It  seems  that  in  his  daily  morning  walks  from 
Peckham  (or  some  village  thereabouts)  where  he 
lived,  to  his  office,  it  had  been  his  practice  for 
the  last  twenty  years  to  drop  his  half-penny 
duly  into  the  hat  of  some  blind  Bartimeus, 
that  sat  begging  alms  by  the  way-side  in  the 
Borough.  The  good  old  beggar  recognized  his 
daily  benefactor  by  the  voice  only  ;  and,  when 
he  died,  left  all  the  amassings  of  his  alms  (that 
had  been  half  a  century  perhaps  in  the  accumu- 
lating), to  his  old  bank  friend.  Was  this  a  story 
to  purse  up  people's  hearts,  and  pennies,  against 
giving  an  alms  to  the  blind  ? — or  not  rather  a 
beautiful  moral  of  well-directed  charity  on  the 
one  part,  and  noble  gratitude  on  the  other  ! 

I  sometimes  wish  I  had  been  that  bank  clerk. 

I  seem  to  remember  a  poor  old  grateful  kind 
of  creature,  blinking,  and  looking  up  with  his 
no  eyes  in  the  sun. 

Is  it  possible  I  could  have  steeled  my  purse 
against  him  ? 

Perhaps  I  had  no  small  change. 

Reader,  do  not  be  frightened  at    the    hard 


264  Bssags  ot  Blia 

■words,  imposition,  imposture— ^zV^,  and  ask 
no  questions.  Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  waters. 
Some  have  unawares  (like  this  bank  clerk)  en- 
tertained angels. 

Shut  not  thy  purse-strings  always  against 
painted  distress.  Act  a  charity  sometimes. 
When  a  poor  creature  (outwardly  and  visibly 
such)  comes  before  thee,  do  not  stay  to  inquire 
whether  the  "  seven  small  children,"  in  whose 
name  he  implores  thy  assistance,  have  a  verita- 
ble existence.  Rake  not  into  the  bowels  of  un- 
welcome truth,  to  save  a  half-penny.  It  is  good 
to  believe  him.  If  he  be  not  all  that  he  pre- 
tendeth,  give,  and  under  a  personate  father  of 
a  family,  think  (if  thou  pleasest)  that  thou  hast 
relieved  an  indigent  bachelor.  When  they 
come  with  their  counterfeit  looks,  and  mump- 
ing tones,  think  them  players.  You  pay  your 
money  to  see  a  comedian  feign  these  things, 
which,  concerning  these  poor  people,  thou 
canst  not  certainly  tell  whether  they  are  feigned 
or  not. 


A  DISSERTATION  UPON  ROAST  PIG. 


MANKIND,  says  a  Chinese  manuscript, 
which  my  friend  M.  was  obliging  enough 
to  read  and  explain  to  me,  for  the  first  seventy 
thousand  ages  ate  their  meat  raw,  clawing  or 
biting  it  from  the  living  animal,  just  as  the}'  do 
in  Abj'ssinia  to  this  day.  This  period  is  not  ob- 
scurely hinted  at  by  their  great  Confucius  in  the 
second  chapter  of  his  "Mundane  IMutations," 
where  he  designates  a  kind  of  golden  age  by 
the  term  Cho-fang,  literally  the  Cook's  Holi- 
day. The  manuscript  goes  on  to  say,  that  the 
art  of  roasting  or  rather  broiling  (which  I  take 
to  be  the  elder  brother)  was  accidentally  dis- 
covered in  the  manner  following  :  The  swine- 
herd, Ho-ti,  ha^dng  gone  out  into  the  woods 
one  morning,  as  his  manner  was,  to  collect 
mast  for  his  hogs,  left  his  cottage  in  the  care 
of  his  eldest  son,  Bo-bo,  a  great  lubberly  boy, 
who  being  fond  of  playing  with  fire,  as  younk- 
ers  of  his  age  commonly  are,  let   some  sparks 


266  )B66ti^6  ot  lEUa 

escape  into  a  bundle  of  straw,  which  kindled 
quickly,  spread  the  conflagration  over  every 
part  of  their  poor  mansion,  till  it  was  reduced 
to  ashes.  Together  with  the  cottage  (a  sorry 
antediluvian  makeshift  of  a  building,  you  may 
think  it),  what  was  of  much  more  importance, 
a  fine  litter  of  new-farrowed  pigs,  no  less  than 
nine  in  number,  perished.  China  pigs  have 
been  esteemed  a  luxury  all  over  the  East,  from 
the  remotest  periods  that  we  read  of.  Bo-bo 
was  in  the  utmost  consternation,  as  you  may 
think,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the  tene- 
ment, which  his  father  and  he  could  easily 
build  up  again  with  a  very  few  branches,  and 
labor  of  an  hour  or  two,  at  any  time,  as  for  the 
loss  of  the  pigs.  While  he  was  thinking  what 
he  should  say  to  his  father,  and  wringing  his 
hands  over  the  smoking  remnants  of  one  of 
those  untimely  sufferers,  an  odor  assailed  his 
nostrils,  unlike  any  scent  which  he  had  before 
experienced.  What  could  it  proceed  from? — 
not  from  the  burnt  cottage, — he  had  smelt  that 
smell  before, — indeed  this  was  by  no  means  the 
first  accident  of  the  kind  w^hich  had  occurred 
through  the  negligence  of  this  unlucky  young 
firebrand.  Much  less  did  it  resemble  that  of 
any  known  herb,  weed,  or  flower.  A  premoni- 
tory moistening  at  the  same  time  overflowed 
his  nether  lip.     He  knew  not  what  to  think. 


B  S)i66ertation  upon  IRoast  pig    267 

He  next  stooped  down  to  feel  the  pig,  if 
there  were  an}'  signs  of  life  in  it.  He 
burnt  his  fingers,  and  to  cool  them  he  applied 
them  in  his  booby  fashion  to  his  mouth.  Some 
of  the  crumbs  of  the  scorched  skin  had  come 
away  with  his  fingers,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  (in  the  world's  life  indeed,  for  before 
him  no  man  had  known  it,  he  tasted — crack- 
lifig  !  Again  he  felt  and  fumbled  at  the  pig.  It 
did  not  burn  him  so  much  now,  still  he  licked 
his  fingers  from  a  sort  of  habit.  The  truth  at 
length  broke  into  his  slow  understanding,  that 
it  was  the  pig  that  smelt  so,  and  the  pig  that 
tasted  so  delicious  ;  and  surrendering  himself 
up  to  the  new-born  pleasure,  he  fell  to  tearing 
up  whole  handfuls  of  the  scorched  skin  with  the 
flesh  next  it,  and  was  cramming  it  down  his 
throat  in  his  beastly  fashion,  when  his  sire  en- 
tered amid  the  smoking  rafters,  armed  with  re- 
tributory'  cudgel,  and  finding  how  affairs  stood, 
began  to  rain  blows  upon  the  young  rogue's 
shoulders,  as  thick  as  hailstones,  which  Bo-bo 
heeded  not  any  more  tham  if  they  had  been 
flies.  The  tickling  pleasure,  which  he  experi- 
enced in  his  lower  regions  had  rendered  him 
quite  callous  to  any  inconveniences  he  might 
feel  in  those  remote  quarters.  His  father  might 
lay  on,  but  he  could  not  beat  him  from  his  pig, 
till  he  had  fairly  made  an  end  of  it,  when,  be- 


268  Basags  of  jeiia 

coming  a  little  more  sensible  of  his  situation, 
something  like  the  following  dialogue  ensued. 

"You  graceless  whelp,  what  have  you  got 
there  devouring?  Is  it  not  enough  that  you 
have  burnt  me  down  three  houses  with  your 
dog's  tricks,  and  be  hanged  to  you  !  but  you 
must  be  eating  fire,  and  I  know  not  what; — 
what  have  you  got  there,  I  say  ?  " 

"  O  father,  the  pig,  the  pig!  do  come  and 
taste  how  nice  the  burnt  pig  eats." 

The  ears  of  Ho-ti  tingled  with  horror.  He 
cursed  his  son,  and  he  cursed  himself  that  ever 
he  should  beget  a  son  that  should  eat  burnt 

pig- 

Bo-bo,  whose  scent  was  wonderfully  sharp- 
ened since  morning,  soon  raked  out  another 
pig,  and  fairly  rending  it  asunder,  thrust  the 
lesser  half  by  main  force  into  the  fists  of  Ho-ti, 
still  shouting  out :  "  Bat,  eat,  eat  the  burnt  pig, 
father,  only  taste  ;  O  Lord!  " — with  such  like 
barbarous  ejaculations,  cramming  all  the  while 
as  if  he  would  choke. 

Ho-ti  trembled  in  every  joint  while  he  grasped 
the  abominable  thing,  wavering  whether  he 
should  not  put  his  son  to  death  for  an  unnatu- 
ral young  monster,  when  the  crackling  scorch- 
ing his  fingers,  as  it  had  done  his  son's,  and  ap- 
plying the  same  remedy  to  them,  he  in  his  turn 
tasted  some  of  its  flavor,  which,  make  what  sour 


H  Dissertation  upon  IRoast  pig    269 

mouths  he  would  for  a  pretence,  proved  not 
altogether  displeasing  to  him.  In  conclusion 
(for  the  manuscript  here  is  a  little  tedious)  both 
father  and  son  fairly  sat  down  to  the  mess,  and 
never  left  off  till  they  had  dispatched  all  that 
remained  of  the  litter. 

Bo-bo  was  strictly  enjoined  not  to  let  the  se- 
cret escape,  for  the  neighbors  would  certainly 
have  stoned  them  for  a  couple  of  abominable 
wretches,  who  could  think  of  improving  upon 
the  good  meat  which  God  had  sent  them.  Nev- 
ertheless, strange  stories  got  about.  It  was  ob- 
sen,'ed  that  Ho-ti's  cottage  was  now  burnt  down 
more  frequently  than  ever.  Nothing  but  fires 
from  this  time  forward.  Some  would  break  out 
in  broad  day,  others  in  the  nighttime.  As  often 
as  the  sow  farrowed,  so  sure  was  the  house  of 
Ho-ti  to  be  in  a  blaze ;  and  Ho-ti  himself,  which 
was  the  more  remarkable,  instead  of  chastising 
his  son,  seemed  to  grow  more  indulgent  to  him 
than  ever.  At  length  they  were  watched,  the 
terrible  mystery  discovered,  and  father  and  son 
summoned  to  take  their  trial  at  Pekin,  then  an 
inconsiderable  assize  town.  Evidence  was 
given,  the  obnoxious  food  itself  produced  in 
court,  and  verdict  about  to  be  pronounced,  when 
the  foreman  of  the  jury  begged  that  some  of  the 
burnt  pig,  of  which  the  culprits  stood  accused, 
might  be  handed  into  the  box.     He  handled  it, 


270  jEssa^e  of  JElia 


and  they  all  handled  it ;  and  burning  their  fin- 
gers, as  Bo-bo  and  his  father  had  done  before 
them,  and  nature  prompting  to  each  of  them  the 
same  remedy,  against  the  face  of  all  the  facts, 
and  the  clearest  charge  which  judge  had  ever 
given, — to  the  surprise  of  the  whole  court, 
townsfolk,  strangers,  reporters,  and  all  present, 
— without  leaving  the  box,  or  any  manner  of 
consultation  whatever,  they  brought  in  a  sim- 
ultaneous verdict  of  Not  Guilty. 

The  judge,  who  was  a  shrewd  fellow,  winked 
at  the  manifest  iniquity  of  the  decision  ;  and 
when  the  court  was  dismissed,  went  privily,  and 
bought  up  all  the  pigs  that  could  be  had  for  love 
or  money.  In  a  few  days  his  Lordship's  town- 
house  was  observed  to  be  on  fire.  The  thing 
took  wing,  and  now  there  was  nothing  to  be 
seen  but  fire  in  every  direction.  Fuel  and  pigs 
grew  enormously  dear  all  over  the  district.  The 
insurance  offices  one  and  all  shut  up  shop. 
People  built  slighter  and  slighter  every  day, 
until  it  was  feared  that  the  very  science  of  ar- 
chitecture would  in  no  long  time  be  lost  to  the 
world.  Thus  this  custom  of  firing  houses  con- 
tinued, till  in  process  of  time,  says  my  manu- 
script, a  sage  arose,  like  our  Locke,  who  made 
a  discovery,  that  the  flesh  of  swine,  or  indeed 
of  any  other  animal,  might  be  cooked  [biirnt^ 
as  they  called  it)  without  the  necessity  of  con- 


B  dissertation  upon  tRoast  HMcj     271 

suminor  a  whole  house  to  dress  it.  Then  first 
began  the  rude  form  of  a  gridiron.  Roasting 
by  the  string  or  spit  came  in  a  century  or  two 
later  ;  I  forget  in  whose  dynasty.  By  such  slow 
degrees,  concludes  the  manuscript,  do  the  most 
useful,  and  seemingly  the  most  obvious  arts 
make  their  way  among  mankind. 

Without  placing  too  implicit  faith  in  the  ac- 
count above  given,  it  must  be  agreed,  that  if  a 
worthy  pretext  for  so  dangerous  an  experiment 
as  setting  houses  on  fire  (especially  in  these 
days)  could  be  assigned  in  favor  of  any  culi- 
nary object,  that  pretext  and  excuse  might  be 
found  in  roast  pig. 

Of  all  the  delicacies  in  the  whole  modus  edi- 
bilis,  I  will  maintain  it  to  be  the  most  delicate 
— princeps  obson ioru m . 

I  speak  not  of  your  grown  porkers — things 
between  pig  and  pork — those  hobbydehoys — 
but  a  young  and  tender  suckling — under  a 
moon  old — guiltless  as  yet  of  the  sty — with  no 
original  speck  of  the  amor  imm,unditicB ,  the 
hereditary  failing  of  the  first  parent,  yet  mani- 
fest— his  voice  as  yet  not  broken,  but  something 
between  a  childish  treble  and  a  grumble — the 
mild  fore-runner,  or  prisliidiiini  of  a  grunt. 

He  must  be  roasted.  I  am  not  ignorant  that 
our  ancestors  ate  them  seethed,  or  boiled, — but 
"what  a  sacrifice  of  the  exterior  tegument  ? 


272  lEsB^^B  of  jEUa 

There  is  no  flavor  comparable,  I  will  con- 
tend, to  that  of  the  crisp,  tawny,  well-watched, 
not  over-roasted,  crackling,  as  it  is  well  called, 
— the  very  teeth  are  invited  to  their  share  of 
the  pleasure  at  this  banquet  in  overcoming  the 
coy,  brittle  resistance, — with  the  adhesive  ole- 
aginous— O  call  it  not  fat  !  but  an  indefinable 
sweetness  growing  up  to  it — the  tender  blos- 
soming of  fat — fat  cropped  in  the  bud — taken  in 
the  shoot — in  the  first  innocence — the  cream 
and   quintessence  of   the  child-pig's  yet  pure 

food, the  lean,  no  lean,  but  a  kind  of  animal 

manna, — or,  rather,  fat  and  lean  (if  it  must  be 
so)  so  blended  and  running  into  each  other, 
that  both  together  make  but  one  ambrosian 
result,  or  common  substance. 

Behold  him,  while  he  is  "doing" — it  seem- 
eth  rather  a  refreshing  warmth,  than  a  scorch- 
ing heat,  that  he  is  so  passive  to.  How  equably 
he  twirleth  round  the  string!  Now  he  is  just 
done.  To  see  the  extreme  sensibility  of  that 
tender  age  !  he  hath  wept  out  his  pretty  eyes — 
radiant  jellies — shooting  stars. 

See  him  in  the  dish,  his  second  cradle,  how 
meek  he  lieth  ! — wouldst  thou  have  had  this  in- 
nocent grow  up  to  the  grossness  and  indocility 
which  too  often  accompany  maturer  swine- 
hood  ?  Ten  to  one  he  would  have  proved  a 
glutton,  a  sloven,  an  obstinate,  disagreeable  ani- 


B  Dissertation  upon  IRoast  pic}     273 

mal — wallowing  in  all  manner  of  filthy  conver- 
sation,— from  these  sins  he  is  happily  snatched 
away, — 

Ere  sin  could  blight  or  sorrow  fade, 
Death  came  with  timely  care— 

his  memory  is  odoriferous, — no  clown  curseth, 
while  his  stomach  half  rejecteth,  the  rank  ba- 
con,— no  coal-heaver  bolteth  him  in  reeking 
sausages, — he  hath  a  fair  sepulchre  in  the  grate- 
ful stomach  of  the  judicious  epicure, — and  for 
such  a  tomb  might  be  content  to  die. 

He  is  the  best  of  sapors.  Pineapple  is  great. 
She  is  indeed  almost  too  transcendant — a  de- 
light, if  not  sinful,  yet  so  like  to  sinning  that 
really  a  tender  conscienced  person  would  do 
well  to  pause — too  ravishing  for  mortal  taste, 
she  woundeth  and  excoriateth  the  lips  that  ap- 
proach her — like  lovers'  kisses,  she  biteth — she 
is  a  pleasure  bordering  on  pain  from  the  fierce- 
ness and  insanity  of  her  relish — but  she  stop- 
peth  at  the  palate — she  meddleth  not  with  the 
appetite — and  the  coarsest  hunger  might  bar- 
ter her  consistently  for  a  mutton  chop. 

Pig — let  me  speak  his  praise — is  no  less 
provocative  of  the  appetite,  than  he  is  satisfac- 
tory to  the  criticalness  of  the  censorious  palate. 
The  strong  man  may  batten  on  him,  and  the 
weakling  refuseth  not  his  mild  juices. 


274  J£63a^3  Of  BUa 


Unlike  to  mankind's  mixed  characters,  a  bun- 
dle of  virtues  and  vices,  inexplicably  inter- 
twisted, and  not  to  be  unravelled  without  hazard, 
he  is — good  throughout.  No  part  of  him  is 
better  or  worse  than  another.  He  helpeth,  as 
far  as  his  little  means  extend,  all  around.  He 
is  the  least  envious  of  banquets.  He  is  all 
neighbors'  fare. 

I  am  one  of  those  who  freely  and  ungrud- 
gingly impart  a  share  of  the  good  things  of  this 
life  which  fall  to  their  lot  (few  as  mine  are  in 
this  kind)  to  a  friend.  I  protest  I  take  as  great 
an  interest  in  my  friend's  pleasures,  his  rel- 
ishes, and  proper  satisfactions,  as  in  mine  own. 
''Presents,"  I  often  say,  "endear  Absents." 
Hares,  pheasants,  partridges,  snipes,  barn-door 
chickens  (those  "  tame  villatic  fowl"),  capons, 
plovers,  brawn,  barrels  of  oysters,  I  dispense  as 
freely  as  I  receive  them.  I  love  to  taste  them, 
as  it  were,  upon  the  tongue  of  my  friend.  But 
a  stop  must  be  put  somewhere.  One  would  not, 
like  Ivcar,  ' '  give  every  thing. ' '  I  make  my 
stand  upon  pig.  Methinks  it  is  an  ingratitude 
to  the  Giver  of  all  good  flavors,  to  extradomi- 
ciliate,  or  send  out  of  the  house,  slightingly 
(under  pretext  of  friendship,  or  I  know  not 
what),  a  blessing  so  particularly  adapted,  pre- 
destined, I  may  say,  to  my  individual  palate — 
it  argues  an  insensibility. 


B  Biasertation  upon  IRoast  ipig     275 

I  remember  a  touch  of  conscience  in  this  kind 
at  school.  My  good  old  aunt,  who  never  parted 
from  me  at  the  end  of  a  holiday  without  stuff- 
ing a  sweetmeat,  or  some  nice  thing,  into  my 
pocket,  had  dismissed  me  one  evening  with  a 
smoking  plumb-cake  fresh  from  the  oven.  In 
my  way  to  school  (it  was  over  London  bridge) 
a  grayheaded  old  beggar  saluted  me  (I  have  no 
doubt,  at  this  time  of  day,  that  he  was  a  coun- 
terfeit). I  had  no  pence  to  console  him  with, 
and  in  the  vanity  of  self-denial,  and  in  the 
very  coxcombry  of  charity,  schoolboy-like,  I 
made  him  a  present  of — the  whole  cake !  I 
walked  on  a  little,  buoyed  up,  as  one  is  on  such 
occasions,  with  a  sweet  soothing  of  self-satis- 
faction ;  but  before  I  had  got  to  the  end  of  the 
bridge  my  better  feelings  returned,  and  I  burst 
into  tears,  thinking  how  ungrateful  I  had  been 
to  my  good  aunt,  to  go  and  give  her  good  gift 
away  to  a  stranger  that  I  had  never  seen  before, 
and  who  might  be  a  bad  man  for  aught  I  knew  ; 
and  then  I  thought  of  the  pleasure  my  aunt 
would  be  taking  in  thinking  that  I — I  myself, 
and  not  another — would  eat  her  nice  cake, — 
and  what  should  I  say  to  her  the  next  time  I 
saw  her, — how  naughty  I  was  to  part  with  her 
pretty  present  I — and  the  odor  of  that  spicy  cake 
came  back  upon  my  recollection,  and  the  pleas- 
ure and  curiosity  I  had  taken   in   seeing  her 


276  JEesa^e  ot  iBlia 

make  it,  and  her  joy  when  she  sent  it  to  the 
oven,  and  how  disappointed  she  would  feel  that 
I  had  never  had  a  bit  of  it  in  my  mouth  at 
last, — and  I  blamed  my  impertinent  spirit  of 
alms-giving,  and  out-of-place  hypocrisy  of  good- 
ness ;  and  above  all  I  wished  never  to  see  the 
face  again  of  that  insidious,  good-for-nothing 
old  gray  impostor. 

Our  ancestors  were  nice  in  their  method  of 
sacrificing  these  tender  victims.  We  read  of 
pigs  whipt  to  death  with  something  of  a  shock, 
as  we  hear  of  any  other  obsolete  custom.  The 
age  of  discipline  is  gone  by,  or  it  would  be 
curious  to  inquire  (in  a  philosophical  light 
merely)  w^hat  effect  this  process  might  have 
towards  intenerating  and  dulcifying  a  substance, 
naturally  so  mild  and  dulcet  as  the  flesh  of 
young  pigs.  It  looks  like  refining  a  violet. 
Yet  we  should  be  cautious,  while  we  condemn 
the  inhumanity,  how  we  censure  the  wisdom  of 
the  practice.     It  might  impart  a  gusto. 

I  remember  an  hypothesis,  argued  upon  by 
the  young  students,  when  I  was  at  St.  Omer's, 
and  maintained  with  much  learning  and  pleas- 
antry on  both  sides,  ' '  Whether,  supposing  that 
the  flavor  of  a  pig  who  obtained  his  death  by 
whipping  (per  Jlagellationein  extremain),  su- 
peradded a  pleasure  upon  the  palate  of  a  man 
more  intense   than  any  possible  suffering  we 


B  S)i6sertation  upon  IRoast  pltj     277 

can  conceive  in  the  animal,  is  man  justified  in 
using  that  method  of  putting  the  animal  to 
death  ? "     I  forget  the  decision. 

His  sauce  should  be  considered.  Decidedly, 
a  few  bread-crumbs,  done  up  with  his  liver  and 
brains,  and  a  dash  of  mild  sage.  But  banish, 
dear  Mrs.  Cook,  I  beseech  you,  the  whole  onion 
tribe.  Barbecue  your  whole  hogs  to  your  pal- 
ate, steep  them  in  shalots,  stuff  them  out  with 
plantations  of  the  rank  and  guilty  garlic  ;  you 
cannot  poison  them,  or  make  them  stronger 
than  they  are, — but  consider,  he  is  a  weakling 
— a  flower. 


A  BACHELOR'S  COMPLAINT  OF  THE  BE- 
HAVIOR OF  MARRIED  PEOPLE. 

AS  a  single  man,  I  have  spent  a  good  deal  of 
my  time  in  noting  down  the  infirmities  of 
Married  People,  to  console  myself  for  those  su- 
perior pleasures,  which  they  tell  me  I  have  lost 
by  remaining  as  I  am. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  quarrels  of  men  and 
their  wives  ever  made  any  great  impression 
upon  me,  or  had  much  tendency  to  strengthen 
me  in  those  anti-social  resolutions,  which  I  took 
up  long  ago  upon  more  substantial  considera- 
tions. What  oftenest  offends  me  at  the  house 
of  married  persons  where  I  visit,  is  an  error  of 
quite  a  different  description ; — it  is  that  they  are 
too  loving. 

Not  too  loving  neither ;  that  does  not  explain 
my  meaning.  Besides,  why  should  that  offend 
me  ?  The  very  act  of  separating  themselves 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  to  have  the  fuller 
enjoyment  of  each  other's  society,  implies  that 
they  prefer  one  another  to  all  the  world. 


B  JBacbelor's  Complaint  279 

But -what  I  complain  of  is,  that  they  carry  this 
preference  so  undisguisedly,  they  perk  it  up  in 
the  faces  of  us  single  people  so  shamelessly,  you 
cannot  be  in  their  company  a  moment  without 
being  made  to  feel,  by  some  indirect  hint  or 
open  avowal,  that  you  are  not  the  object  of  this 
preference.  Now  there  are  some  things  which 
give  no  offence,  while  implied  or  taken  for 
granted  merely  ;  but  expressed,  there  is  much 
offence  in  them.  If  a  man  were  to  accost  the 
first  homely-featured,  or  plainly  dressed  young 
woman  of  his  acquaintance,  and  tell  her  bluntly, 
that  she  was  not  handsome  or  rich  enough  for 
him,  and  he  could  not  marry  her,  he  would  de- 
serve to  be  kicked  for  his  ill  manners  ;  yet  no 
less  is  implied  in  the  fact,  that  having  access 
and  opportunity  of  putting  the  question  to  her, 
he  has  never  yet  thought  fit  to  do  it.  The 
young  woman  understands  this  as  clearly  as  if 
it  were  put  into  words  ;  but  no  reasonable  young 
woman  would  think  of  making  this  the  ground 
of  a  quarrel.  Just  as  little  right  have  a  married 
couple  to  tell  me  by  speeches,  and  looks  that 
are  scarce  less  plain  than  speeches,  that  I  am 
not  the  happy  man, — the  lady's  choice.  It  is 
enough  that  I  know  I  am  not ;  I  do  not  want 
this  perpetual  reminding. 

The  display  of  superior  knowledge  or  riches 
may  be  made  sufficiently  mortifying  ;  but  these 


28o  Bssa^s  ot  JElia 

admit  of  a  palliative.  The  knowledge  which  is 
brought  out  to  insult  me,  may  accidently  im- 
prove me  ;  and  in  the  rich  man's  houses  and 
pictures,  his  parks  and  gardens,  I  have  a  tempo- 
rary usufruct  at  least.  But  the  display  of  married 
happiness  has  none  of  these  palliatives  ;  it  is 
throughout  pure,  unrecompensed,  unqualified 
insult. 

Marriage  by  its  best  title  is  a  monopoly,  and 
not  of  the  least  in\ndious  sort.  It  is  the  cunning 
of  most  possessors  of  any  exclusive  pri\nlege  to 
keep  their  advantage  as  much  out  of  sight  as 
possible,  that  their  less  favored  neighbors,  see- 
ing little  of  the  benefit,  may  the  less  be  disposed 
to  question  the  right.  But  these  married  monop- 
olists thrust  the  most  obnoxious  part  of  their 
patent  into  our  faces. 

Nothing  is  to  me  more  distasteful  than  that 
entire  complacency  and  satisfaction  which  beam 
in  the  countenances  of  a  new-married  couple, 
— in  that  of  the  lady  particularly  ;  it  tells  you, 
that  her  lot  is  disposed  of  in  this  world ;  that 
you  can  have  no  hopes  of  her.  It  is  true,  I  have 
none,  nor  wishes  either,  perhaps  ;  but  this  is 
one  of  those  truths  which  ought,  as  I  have  said 
before,  to  be  taken  for  granted,  not  expressed. 

The  excessive  airs  w^hich  those  people  give 
themselves,  founded  on  the  ignorance  of  us  un- 
married people,  would  be  more  offensive  if  they 


B  JBacbelor's  Complaint  281 

were  less  irrational.  We  will  allow  them  to  un- 
derstand the  mysteries  belonging  to  their  own 
craft  better  than  we,  who  have  not  had  the  hap- 
piness to  be  made  free  of  the  company  ;  but 
arrogance  is  not  content  within  these  limits. 
If  a  single  person  presume  to  offer  his  opinion 
in  their  presence,  though  upon  the  most  indif- 
ferent subject,  he  is  immediately  silenced  as  an 
incompetent  person.  Nay,  a  young  married 
lady  of  my  acquaintance,  who,  the  best  of  the 
jest  was,  had  not  changed  her  condition  above 
a  fortnight  before,  in  a  question  which  I  had 
the  misfortune  to  differ  from  her,  respecting  the 
properest  mode  of  breeding  oysters  for  the  Lon- 
don market,  had  the  assurance  to  ask  with  a 
sneer,  how  such  an  old  bachelor  as  I  could 
pretend  to  know  any  thing  about  such  matters  ! 
But  what  I  have  spoken  of  hitherto  is  nothing 
to  the  airs  which  these  creatures  give  themselves 
when  they  come,  as  they  generally  do,  to  have 
children.  When  I  consider  how  little  of  a 
rarity  children  are, — that  every  street  and  blind 
alley  swarms  with  them, — that  the  poorest  peo- 
ple commonly  have  them  in  most  abundance, — 
that  there  are  few  marriages  that  are  not  blest 
with  at  least  one  of  these  bargains, — how  often 
they  turn  out  ill,  and  defeat  the  fond  hopes  of 
their  parents,  taking  to  vicious  courses,  which 
end  in  poverty,  disgrace,  the  gallows,  etc., — I 


282  jBeen^se  of  JSlia 


cannot  for  my  life  tell  what  cause  for  pride 
there  can  possibly  be  in  having  them.  If  they 
were  young  phoenixes,  indeed,  that  were  bom 
but  one  in  a  year,  there  might  be  a  pretext. 
But  when  they  are  so  common 

I  do  not  advert  to  the  insolent  merit  which 
they  assume  with  their  husbands  on  these  occa- 
sions. I,et  them  look  to  that.  But  why  we, 
who  are  not  their  natural-bom  subjects,  should 
be  expected  to  bring  our  spices,  myrrh,  and  in- 
cense,— our  tribute  and  homage  of  admiration, 
— I  do  not  see. 

**  Like  as  the  arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant 
even  so  are  the  young  children  "  ;  so  says  the 
excellent  ofiEice  in  our  Prayer-Book  appointed 
for  the  churching  of  women.  "  Happy  is  the 
man  that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them"; 
so  say  I;  but  then  don't  let  him  discharge 
his  quiver  upon  us  that  are  weaponless  ; — let 
them  be  arrows,  but  not  to  gall  and  stick  us.  I 
have  generally  observed  that  these  arrows  are 
double-headed  :  they  have  two  forks,  to  be  sure 
to  hit  with  one  or  the  other.  As  for  instance, 
where  you  come  into  a  house  which  is  full  of 
children,  if  you  happen  to  take  no  notice  of 
them  (you  are  thinking  of  something  else,  per- 
haps, and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  their  innocent  ca- 
resses), you  are  set  down  as  untractable,  mo- 
rose, a  hater  of  children.    On  the  other  hand,  if 


H  :fSacbelor*s  Complaint  283 


you  find  them  more  than  usually  engaging, — if 
you  are  taken  with  their  pretty  manners,  and 
set  about  in  earnest  to  romp  and  play  mth  them, 
some  pretext  or  other  is  sure  to  be  found  for 
sending  them  out  of  the  room  ;   they  are  too 

noisy  or  boisterous,  or  Mr.  does  not  like 

children.  With  one  or  other  of  these  forks  the 
arrow  is  sure  to  hit. 

I  could  forgive  their  jealousy,  and  dispense 
with  toying  with  their  brats,  if  it  gives  them 
any  pain ;  but  I  think  it  unreasonable  to  be 
called  upon  to  love  them,  where  I  see  no  occa- 
sion,— to  love  a  whole  family,  perhaps,  eight, 
nine,  or  ten,  indiscriminately, — to  love  all  the 
pretty  dears,  because  children  are  so  engaging  ! 

I  know  there  is  a  proverb,  "Love  me,  love 
my  dog  "  ;  that  is  not  always  so  very  practicable, 
particularly  if  the  dog  be  set  upon  you  to  tease 
you  or  snap  at  you  in  sport.  But  a  dog,  or  a 
lesser  thing, — any  inanimate  substance,  as  a 
keepsake,  a  watch  or  a  ring,  a  tree,  or  the  place 
where  we  last  parted  when  my  friend  went 
away  upon  a  long  absence,  I  can  make  shift  to 
love,  because  I  love  him,  and  any  thing  that  re- 
minds me  of  him  ;  provided  it  be  in  its  nature 
indifferent,  and  apt  to  receive  whatever  hue 
fancy  can  give  it.  But  children  have  a  real 
character,  and  an  essential  being  of  themselves  ; 
they  are  amiable  or  unamiable  per  se  ;  I  must 


284  :iBssai5s  ot  :!Ella 

love  or  hate  them  as  I  see  cause  for  either  in 
their  qualities.  A  child's  nature  is  too  serious 
a  thing  to  admit  of  its  being  regarded  as  a  mere 
appendage  to  another  being,  and  to  be  loved  or 
hated  accordingly  ;  they  stand  with  me  upon 
their  own  stock,  as  much  as  men  and  women 
do.  Oh  !  but  3'ou  will  say,  sure  it  is  an  attrac- 
tive age, — there  is  something  iu  the  tender 
years  of  infancy  that  of  itself  charms  us  ?  That 
is  the  very  reason  why  I  am  more  nice  about 
them.  I  know  that  a  sweet  child  is  the  sweet- 
est thing  in  nature,  not  even  excepting  the 
delicate  creatures  which  bear  them,  but  the 
prettier  the  kind  of  a  thing  is,  the  more  desir- 
able it  is  that  it  should  be  pretty  of  its  kind. 
One  daisy  differs  not  much  from  another  in 
glory ;  but  a  violet  should  look  and  smell  the 
daintiest.  I  was  always  rather  squeamish  in 
my  women  and  children. 

But  this  is  not  the  worst;  one  must  be  ad- 
mitted into  their  familiarity  at  least,  before 
they  can  complain  of  inattention.  It  implies 
^dsits,  and  some  kind  of  intercourse.  But  if 
the  husband  be  a  man  with  whom  3'ou  have 
lived  on  a  friendly  footing  before  marriage — if 
you  did  not  come  in  on  the  wife's  side — if  you 
did  not  sneak  into  the  house  in  her  train,  but 
were  an  old  friend  in  fast  habits  of  intimacy  be- 
fore their  courtship  was  so  much  as  thought 


B  :(BacbeIor*6  Complaint  285 


on, — look  about  you — your  tenure  is  precarious 
— before  a  twelvemonth  shall  roll  over  your 
head,  you  shall  find  your  old  friend  gradually 
grow  cool  and  altered  towards  you,  and  at  last 
seek  opportunities  of  breaking  with  you.  I 
have  scarce  a  married  friend  of  my  acquaintance, 
upon  whose  firm  faith  I  can  rely,  whose  friend- 
ship did  not  commence  after  the  period  of  his 
marriage.  With  some  limitations,  they  can 
endure  that ;  but  that  the  good  man  should 
have  dared  to  enter  into  a  solemn  league  of 
friendship  in  which  they  were  not  consulted, 
though  it  happened  before  they  knew  him, — 
before  they  that  are  now  man  and  wife  ever 
met, — this  is  intolerable  to  them.  Every  long 
friendship,  every  old  authentic  intimacy,  must 
be  brought  into  their  office  to  be  new  stamped 
w-ith  their  currenc}',  as  a  sovereign  prince  calls 
in  the  good  old  money  that  was  coined  in  some 
reign  before  he  was  born  or  thought  of,  to  be 
new  marked  and  minted  with  the  stamp  of  his 
authority,  before  he  will  let  it  pass  current  in 
the  world.  You  may  guess  what  luck  generally 
befalls  such  a  rusty  piece  of  metal  as  I  am  in 
these  new  mintijigs. 

Innumerable  are  the  ways  which  they  take  to 
insult  and  worm  you  out  of  their  husband's 
confidence.  Laughing  at  all  you  say  with  a 
kind  of  wonder,  as  if  you  were  a  queer  kind  of 


286  B6sa^6  Of  :ei(a 


fellow  that  said  good  things,  but  an  oddity,  is 
one  of  the  ways  ; — they  have  a  particular  kind 
of  stare  for  the  purpose  ; — till  at  last  the  hus- 
band, who  used  to  defer  to  your  judgment,  and 
would  pass  over  some  excrescences  of  under- 
standing and  manner  for  the  sake  of  a  general 
vein  of  observation  (not  quite  vulgar)  which  he 
perceived  in  you,  begins  to  suspect  whether  you 
are  not  altogether  a  humorist, — a  fellow  well 
enough  to  have  consorted  with  in  his  bachelor 
days,  but  not  quite  so  proper  to  be  introduced 
to  ladies.  This  may  be  called  the  staring  way  ; 
and  is  that  which  has  oftenest  been  put  in 
practice  against  me. 

Then  there  is  the  exaggerating  way,  or  the 
way  of  irony  ;  that  is,  where  they  find  you  an 
object  of  especial  regard  with  their  husband, 
who  is  not  so  easily  to  be  shaken  from  the  last- 
ing attachment  founded  on  esteem  which  he  has 
conceived  towards  you,  by  never  qualified  ex- 
aggerations to  cry  up  all  that  you  say  or  do,  till 
the  good  man,  who  understands  well  enough 
that  it  is  all  done  in  compliment  to  him,  grows 
weary  of  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  is  due  to 
so  much  candor,  and  by  relaxing  a  little  on  his 
part,  and  taking  down  a  peg  or  two  in  his  en- 
thusiasm, sinks  at  length  to  the  kindly  level  of 
moderate  esteem — that  "decent  affection  and 
complacent  kindness  "  tow^ards  you,  where  she 


B  JiSacbelor's  Complaint  287 


herself  can  join  in  sympathy  with  him  without 
much  stretch  and  violence  to  her  sincerity. 

Another  way  (for  the  ways  they  have  to  ac- 
complish so  desirable  a  purpose  are  infinite)  is, 
with  a  kind  of  innocent  simplicity,  continually 
to  mistake  what  it  was  which  first  made  their 
husband  fond  of  you.  If  an  esteem  for  some- 
thing excellent  in  your  moral  character  was 
that  which  riveted  the  chain  which  she  is  to 
break,  upon  any  imaginary  discovery  of  a  want 
of  poignancy  in  your  conversation,  she  will  cry, 
"I  thought,  my  dear,  you  described  your  friend, 

Mr. ,  as  agreat\\dt?"     If,   on  the  other 

hand,  it  was  for  some  supposed  charm  in  your 
conversation  that  he  first  grew  to  like  you,  and 
was  content  for  this  to  overlook  some  trifling 
irregularities  in  3'our  moral  deportment,  upon 
the  first  notice  of  any  of  these  she  as  readily 
exclaims  :  "  This,  my  dear,  is  your  good  Mr. 
!  "  One  good  lady  whom  I  took  the  lib- 
erty of  expostulating  with  for  not  showing  me. 
quite  so  much  respect  as  I  thought  due  to  her 
husband's  old  friend,  had  the  candor  to  confess 

to  me  that  she  had  often  heard  Mr. speak 

of  me  before  marriage,  and  that  she  had  con- 
ceived a  great  desire  to  be  acquainted  with  me, 
but  that  the  sight  of  me  had  very  much  disap- 
pointed her  expectations  ;  for  from  her  hus- 
band's representations  of  me,  she  had  formed  a 


JEssa^s  of  Blia 


notion  that  she  was  to  see  a  fine,  tall,  officer- 
like  looking  man  (I  use  her  very-  words),  the 
very  reverse  of  which  proved  to  be  the  truth. 
This  was  candid,  and  I  had  the  civility  not  to 
ask  her  in  return,  how  she  came  to  pitch  upon 
a  standard  of  personal  accomplishments  for  her 
husband's  friends  which  differed  so  much  from 
his  own  ;  for  my  friend's  dimensions  as  near 
as  possible  approximate  to  mine  ;  he  standing 
five  feet  five  in  his  shoes,  in  which  I  have  the 
advantage  of  him  by  about  half  an  inch  ;  and 
he  no  more  than  myself  exhibited  any  indica- 
tions of  a  martial  character  in  his  air  or  counte- 
nance. 

These  are  some  of  the  mortifications  which  I 
have  encountered  in  the  absurd  attempt  to  visit 
at  their  houses.  To  enumerate  them  all  would 
be  a  vain  endeavor.  I  shall  therefore  just 
glance  at  the  very  common  impropriety  of 
which  married  ladies  are  guilty, — of  treating  us 
as  if  we  were  their  husbands,  and  vice  versa.  I 
mean,  when  they  use  us  with  familiarity,  and 
their  husbands  with  ceremony.  Testacea,  for 
instance,  kept  me  the  other  night  two  or  three 
hours  beyond  my  usual  time  of  supping,  while 

she  was  fretting  because  Mr. did  not  come 

home  till  the  oysters  were  all  spoiled  rather 
than  she  would  be  guilty  of  the  impoliteness  of 
touching  one  in  his  absence.      This  was  revers- 


B  JSacbelor^s  Complaint  289 

ing  the  point  of  good  manners  ;  for  ceremony 
is  an  invention  to  take  off  the  uneasy  feeling 
which  we  derive  from  knowing  ourselves  to  be 
less  the  object  of  love  and  esteem  with  a  fellow- 
creature  than  some  other  person  is.  It  en- 
deavors to  make  up,  by  superior  attentions  in 
little  points,  for  that  invidious  preference  which 
it  is  forced  to  deny  in  the  greater.  Had 
Testacea  kept  the  oysters  back  for  me,  and 
withstood  her  husband's  importunities  to  go  to 
supper,  she  would  have  acted  according  to  the 
strict  rules  of  propriety.  I  know  no  ceremony 
that  ladies  are  bound  to  observe  to  their  hus- 
bands, beyond  the  point  of  a  modest  behavior 
and  decorum  ;  therefore  I  must  protest  against 
the  vicarious  gluttony  of  Cerasea,  who  at  her 
own  table  sent  away  a  dish  of  Morellas,  which 
I  was  applying  to  with  great  good- will,  to  her 
husband  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  and  rec- 
ommended a  plate  of  less  extraordinary^  goose- 
berries to  my  un  wedded  palate  in  their  stead. 

Neither  can  I  excuse  the  wanton  affront  of 

But  I  am  weary  of  stringing  up  all  my  married 
acquaintance  by  Roman  denominations.  Let 
them  amend  and  change  their  manners,  or  I 
promise  to  record  the  full-length  English  of 
their  names,  to  the  terror  of  all  such  desperate 
offenders  in  future. 


ON  SOME  OF  THE   OLD  ACTORS. 


THE  casual  sight  of  an  old  playbill,  which  I 
picked  up  the  other  day — I  know  not  by 
what  chance  it  was  preserved  so  long — tempts 
me  to  call  to  mind  a  few  of  the  players  who 
make  the  principal  figure  in  it.  It  presents  the 
cast  of  parts  in  the  "  Twelfth  Night  "  at  the  old 
Drury  Lane  Theatre  two-and-thirty  years  ago. 
There  is  some  thing  very  touching  in  these  old 
remembrances.  They  make  us  think  how  we 
once  used  to  read  a  playbill, — not,  as  now  per- 
adventure,  singling  out  a  favorite  performer, 
and  casting  a  negligent  eye  over  the  rest ;  but 
spelling  out  every  name,  down  to  the  very 
mutes  and  servants  of  the  scene, — when  it  was 
a  matter  of  no  small  moment  to  us  whether 
Whitfield  or  Packer  took  the  part  of  Fabian  ; 
when  Benson,  and  Burton,  and  Phillimore — 
names  of  small  account — had  an  importance 
beyond  what  we  can  be  content  to  attribute  now 
to  the   time's  best  actors.      "  Orsino,   by  Mr. 


On  Some  ot  tbe  ©ID  Bctors       291 

Barrymore."  What  a  full  Shakespearean  sound 
it  carries  !  how  fresh  to  memory  arise  the 
image,  and  the  manner  of  the  gentle  actor  ! 

Those  who  have  only  seen  Mrs.  Jordan  within 
the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  can  have  no  ade- 
quate notion  of  her  performance  of  such  parts 
as  Ophelia;  Helena,  in  "All  's  Well  that  Ends 
Well  "  ;  and  Viola  in  this  play.  Her  voice  had 
latterly  acquired  a  coarseness  which  suited  well 
enough  with  her  Nells  and  Hoydens,  but  in 
those  days  it  sank,  with  her  steady  melting  eye, 
into  the  heart.  Her  joyous  parts — in  which  her 
memory  now  chiefly  lives — in  her  youth  were 
outdone  by  her  plaintive  ones.  There  is  no 
giving  an  account  how  she  delivered  the  dis- 
guised story  of  her  love  for  Orsino.  It  was  no 
set  speech  that  she  had  foreseen  so  as  to  weave 
it  into  an  harmonious  period,  line  necessarily 
following  line,  to  make  up  the  music — yet  I 
have  heard  it  so  spoken,  or  rather  read,  not 
without  its  grace  and  beauty — but  when  she  had 
declared  her  sister's  history  to  be  a  "blank," 
and  that  she  "never  told  her  love,"  there  was 
a  pause,  as  if  the  story  had  ended, — and  then 
the  image  of  the  "  worm  in  the  bud  "  came  up 
as  a  new  suggestion, — and  the  heightened  image 
of  "Patience"  stiil  followed  after  that  as  by 
some  growing  (and  not  mechanical)  process, 
thought  springing  up  after  thought,  I  would  al- 


292  leeea^e  of  Blia 

most  say,  as  they  were  watered  by  her  tears. 
So  in  those  fine  lines — 

Write  loyal  cantos  of  contemned  love — 
Halloo  your  name  to  the  reverberate  hills — 

there  was  no  preparation  made  in  the  foregoing 
image  for  that  which  was  to  follow.  She  used 
no  rhetoric  in  her  passion,  or  it  was  Nature's 
owm  rhetoric,  most  legitimate  then,  when  it 
seemed  altogether  without  rule  or  law. 

Mrs.  Powel  (now  Mrs.  Renard),  then  in  the 
pride  of  her  beauty,  made  an  admirable  Olivia. 
She  was  particularly  excellent  in  her  unbending 
scenes  in  conversation  with  the  Clown.  I  have 
seen  some  Olivias — and  those  very  sensible 
actresses  too — who  in  these  interlocutions  have 
seemed  to  set  their  wits  at  the  jester,  and  to  vie 
conceits  with  him  in  downright  emulation.  But 
she  used  him  for  her  sport  like  what  he  was,  to 
trifle  a  leisure  sentence  or  two  with,  and  then 
to  be  dismissed,  and  she  to  be  the  Great  Lady 
still.  She  touched  the  imperious  fantastic 
humor  of  the  character  with  nicety.  Her  fine, 
spacious  person  filled  the  scene. 

The  part  of  Malvolio  has,  in  my  judgment, 
been  so  often  misunderstood,  and  the  general 
merits  of  the  actor  who  then  played  it,  so  un- 
duly appreciated,  that  I  shall  hope  for  pardon 
if  I  am  a  little  prolix  upon  these  points. 


On  Some  of  tbe  ©ID  Bctors       293 

Of  all  the  actors  who  flourished  in  my  time — 
a  melancholy  phrase  if  taken  aright,  reader — 
Bensley  had  most  of  the  swell  of  soul,  was 
greatest  in  the  delivery  of  heroic  conceptions, 
the  emotions  consequent  upon  the  presentment 
of  a  great  idea  to  the  fancy.  He  had  the  true 
poetical  enthusiasm — the  rarest  faculty  among 
players.  None  that  I  remember  possessed  even 
a  portion  of  that  fine  madness  which  he  threw 
out  in  Hotspur's  famous  rant  about  glory,  or 
the  transports  of  the  Venetian  incendiary  at 
the  vision  of  the  fired  city.  His  voice  had  the 
dissonance,  and  at  times  the  inspiriting  effect, 
of  the  trumpet.  His  gait  was  uncouth  and  stiff, 
but  no  way  embarrassed  by  affectation  ;  and  the 
thorough-bred  gentleman  was  uppermost  in 
even,^  movement.  He  seized  the  moment  of 
passion  with  greatest  truth  ;  like  a  faithful 
clock,  never  striking  before  the  time  ;  never 
anticipating  or  leading  you  to  anticipate.  He 
was  totally  destitute  of  trick  and  artifice.  He 
seemed  come  upon  the  stage  to  do  the  poet's 
message  simply,  and  he  did  it  with  as  genuine 
fidelity  as  the  nuncios  in  Homer  deliver  the 
errands  of  the  gods.  He  let  the  passion  or 
the  sentiment  do  its  own  work  without  prop  or 
bolstering.  He  would  have  scorned  to  mounte- 
bank it ;  and  betrayed  none  of  that  cleverness 
which  is  the  bane  of  serious  acting.     For  this 


294  Bssags  of  lEUa 

reason,  his  lago  was  the  only  endurable  one 
which  I  remember  to  have  seen.  No  spectator 
from  his  action  could  divine  more  of  his  artifice 
than  Othello  was  supposed  to  do.  His  confes- 
sions in  soliloquy  alone  put  you  in  possession 
of  the  mystery.  There  were  no  by-intimations 
to  make  the  audience  fancy  their  own  discern- 
ment so  much  greater  than  that  of  the  Moor — 
who  commonly  stands  like  a  great  helpless 
mark  set  up  for  mine  Ancient,  and  a  quantity 
of  barren  spectators,  to  shoot  their  bolts  at. 
The  lago  of  Bensley  did  not  go  to  work  so 
grossly.  There  was  a  triumphant  tone  about 
the  character,  natural  to  a  general  conscious- 
ness of  power  ;  but  none  of  that  petty  vanity 
which  chuckles  and  cannot  contain  itself  upon 
any  little  successful  stroke  of  its  knaverj' — as 
is  common  with  your  small  villains  and  green 
probationers  in  mischief.  It  did  not  clap  or 
crow  before  its  time.  It  was  not  a  man  setting 
his  wits  at  a  child,  and  winking  all  the  while  at 
other  children  who  are  mightily  pleased  at  be- 
ing let  into  the  secret ;  but  a  consummate  vil- 
lain entrapping  a  noble  nature  into  toils,  against 
which  no  discernment  was  available,  where  the 
manner  was  as  fathomless  as  the  purpose  seemed 
dark,  and  without  motive.  The  part  of  Malvo- 
lio,  in  the  "Twelfth  Night,"  was  performed  by 
Bensley  with  a  richness  and  a  dignity,  of  which 


On  Some  of  tbe  ©ID  Bctors       295 

(to  judge  from  some  recent  castings  of  that 
character)  the  very  tradition  must  be  worn  out 
from  the  stage.  No  manager  in  those  days 
would  have  dreamed  of  giving  it  to  Mr.  Badde- 
ley,  or  Mr.  Parsons  ;  when  Bensley  was  occa- 
sionally absent  from  the  theatre,  Jolin  Kemble 
thought  it  no  derogation  to  succeed  to  the  part. 
Malvolio  is  not  essentially  ludicrous.  He  be- 
comes comic  but  by  accident.  He  is  cold,  aus- 
tere, repelling  ;  but  dignified,  consistent,  and, 
for  what  appears,  rather  of  an  over-stretched 
morality.  Maria  describes  him  as  a  sort  of 
Puritan ;  and  he  might  have  worn  his  gold 
chain  with  honor  in  one  of  our  old  round-head 
families,  in  the  service  of  a  Lambert  or  a  Lady 
Fairfax.  But  his  morality  and  his  manners  are 
misplaced  in  Illyria.  He  is  opposed  to  the  proper 
levities  of  the  piece,  and  falls  in  the  unequal 
contest.  Still  his  pride,  or  his  gravity  (call  it 
which  you  will),  is  inherent,  and  native  to  the 
man,  not  mock  or  affected,  which  latter  only 
are  the  fit  objects  to  excite  laughter.  His  qual- 
ity is  at  the  best  unlovely,  but  neither  buffoon 
nor  contemptible.  His  bearing  is  lofty,  a  little 
above  his  station,  but  probably  not  much  above 
his  deserts.  We  see  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  have  been  brave,  honorable,  accomplished. 
His  careless  committal  of  the  ring  to  the  ground 
(which  he  was  commissioned  to  restore  to  Cae- 


296  J666as0  ot  jeiia 

sario),  bespeaks  a  generosity  of  birth  and  feel- 
ing. His  dialect  on  all  occasions  is  that  of  a 
gentleman,  and  a  man  of  education.  We  must 
not  confound  him  with  the  eternal  old,  low 
steward  of  comedy.  He  is  master  of  the  house- 
hold to  a  great  princess ;  a  dignity  probably 
conferred  upon  him  for  other  respects  than  age 
or  length  of  service.  Olivia,  at  the  first  indica- 
tion of  his  supposed  madness,  declares  that  she 
"would  not  have  him  miscarry  for  half  of  her 
dowry."  Does  this  look  as  if  the  character 
was  meant  to  appear  little  or  insignificant? 
Once,  indeed,  she  accuses  him  to  his  face — of 
what  ? — of  being  "  sick  of  self-love  " ; — but  with 
a  gentleness  and  considerateness  which  could 
not  have  been,  if  she  had  not  thought  that  this 
particular  infirmity  shaded  some  virtues.  His 
rebuke  to  the  knight,  and  his  sottish  revellers, 
is  sensible  and  spirited  ;  and  when  we  take  into 
consideration  the  unprotected  condition  of  his 
mistress,  and  the  strict  regard  with  which  her 
state  of  real  or  dissembled  mourning  would 
draw  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  her  house 
affairs,  Malvolio  might  feel  the  honor  of  the 
family  in  some  sort  in  his  keeping;  as  it 
appears  not  that  Olivia  had  any  more  brothers, 
or  kinsmen,  to  look  to  it, — for  Sir  Toby  had 
dropped  all  such  nice  respects  at  the  buttery- 
hatch.     That  Malvolio  w^as  meant  to  be  repre- 


^n  Some  ot  tbe  01D  Bctors       297 


sented  as  possessing  estimable  qualities,  the  ex- 
pression of  the  duke,  in  his  anxiety  to  have 
him  reconciled,  almost  infers:  "Pursue  him, 
and  entreat  him  to  a  peace."  Even  in  his 
abused  state  of  chains  and  darkness,  a  sort  of 
greatness  seems  never  to  desert  him.  He  argues 
highly  and  well  with  the  supposed  Sir  Topas, 
and  philosophizes  gallantly  upon  his  straw.* 
There  must  have  been  some  shadow  of  worth 
about  the  man  ;  he  must  have  been  something 
more  than  a  mere  vapor — a  thing  of  straw,  or 
Jack  in  office — before  Fabian  and  Maria  could 
have  ventured  sending  him  upon  a  court  errand 
to  Olivia.  There  was  some  consonancy  (as  he 
would  say)  in  the  undertaking,  or  the  jest  would 
have  been  too  bold  even  for  that  house  of  mis- 
rule. 

Bensley  accordingly  threw  over  the  part  an 
air  of  Spanish  loftiness.  He  looked,  spake, 
and  moved  like  an  old  Castilian.  He  was 
starch,  spruce,  opinionated,  but  his  superstruc- 
ture of  pride  seemed  bottomed  upon  a  sense  of 
worth.  There  was  something  in  it  beyond  the 
coxcomb.     It   was   big  and  swelling,   but  you 

*  Clown.  What  is  the  opinion  of  Pj'thagoras  concern- 
ing wild  fowl  ? 

jMal.  That  the  soul  of  our  grandam  might  haply  in- 
habit a  bird. 

Clown.     What  thinkest  thou  of  his  opinion  ? 

Mai.  I  think  nobly  of  the  soul,  and  no  way  approve 
of  his  opinion. 


298  }6g6ai50  of  iBlia 

could  not  be  sure   that  it  was  hollow.     You 

might  wish  to  see  it  taken  down,  but  you  felt 
that  it  was  upon  an  elevation.  He  was  magnifi- 
cent from  the  outset ;  but  when  the  decent  sobri- 
eties of  the  character  began  to  give  way,  and 
the  position  of  self-love,  in  his  conceit  of  the 
Countess'  affection,  gradually  began  to  work, 
you  would  have  thought  that  the  hero  of  La 
Mancha  in  person  stood  before  you.  How  he 
went  smiling  to  himself!  with  what  ineffable 
carelessness  would  he  twirl  his  gold  chain  ! 
what  a  dream  it  was  !  you  were  infected  with 
the  illusion,  and  did  not  wish  that  it  should  be 
removed !  you  had  no  room  for  laughter  !  if  an 
unseasonable  reflection  of  morality  obtruded 
itself,  it  was  a  deep  sense  of  the  pitiable  infirm- 
ity of  man's  nature,  that  can  lay  him  open  to 
such  frenzies, — but  in  truth  you  rather  admired 
than  pitied  the  lunacy  while  it  lasted, — you  felt 
that  an  hour  of  such  mistake  was  worth  an  age 
with  the  eyes  open.  Who  would  not  wish  to 
live  but  for  a  day  in  the  conceit  of  such  a  lady's 
love  as  Olivia  ?  Why,  the  Duke  would  have 
given  his  principality  but  for  a  quarter  of  a 
minute,  sleeping  or  waking,  to  have  been  so 
deluded.  The  man  seemed  to  tread  upon  air, 
to  taste  manna,  to  walk  with  his  head  in  the 
clouds,  to  mate  Hyperion.  O  !  shake  not  the 
castles  of  his  pride, — endure  yet  for  a  season. 


^n  Some  of  tbe  ®ID  Bctor^       299 

bright  moments  of  confidence, — "stand  still, 
ye  watches  of  the  element,"  that  Malvolio  may 
be  still  in  fancy  fair  Olivia's  lord !  But  fate  and 
retribution  say  no !  I  hear  the  mischievous  tit- 
ter of  Maria,  the  witty  taunts  of  Sir  Toby,  the 
still  more  insupportable  triumph  of  the  foolish 
knight,  the  counterfeit  Sir  Topas  is  unmasked, 
and  "thus  the  whirligig  of  time,"  as  the  true 
clown  hath  it,  "brings  in  his  revenges."  I 
confess  that  I  never  saw  the  catastrophe  of  this 
character,  while  Bensley  played  it,  without  a 
kind  of  tragic  interest.  There  was  good  foolery 
too.  Few  now  remember  Dodd.  What  an 
Aguecheek  the  stage  lost  in  him  !  Lovegrove, 
who  came  nearest  to  the  old  actors,  revived 
the  character  some  few  seasons  ago,  and  made 
it  sufl&ciently  grotesque  ;  but  Dodd  was  z7,  as  it 
came  out  of  nature's  hands.  It  might  be  said  to 
remain  z;z  puris  Jiaturalibus.  In  expressing 
slowness  of  apprehension  this  actor  surpassed 
all  others.  You  could  see  the  first  dawn  of  an 
idea  stealing  slowly  over  his  countenance, 
climbing  up  by  little  and  little,  with  a  painful 
process,  till  it  cleared  up  at  last  to  the  fulness 
of  a  twilight  conception — its  highest  meridian. 
He  seemed  to  keep  back  his  intellect,  as  some 
have  had  the  power  to  retard  their  pulsation. 
The  balloon  takes  less  time  in  filling  than  it 
took  to  cover  the  expansion  of  his  broad  moony 


300  iBeesL>Q0  of  jeUa 

face  over  all  its  quarters  with  expression.  A 
glimmer  of  understanding  would  appear  in  a 
corner  of  his  eye,  and  for  lack  of  fuel  go  out 
again.  A  part  of  his  forehead  would  catch  a 
little  intelligence  and  be  a  long  time  in  commu- 
nicating it  to  the  remainder. 

I  am  ill  at  dates,  but  I  think  it  is  now  better 
than  five-and-twenty  years  ago,  that  walking  in 
the  gardens  of  Gray's  Inn — they  were  then  far 
finer  than  they  are  now — the  accursed  Verulam 
Buildings  had  not  encroached  upon  all  the  east 
side  of  them,  cutting  out  delicate  green  cran- 
kles,  and  shouldering  away  one  of  two  of  the 
stately  alcoves  of  the  terrace, — the  survivor 
stands  gaping  and  relationless  as  if  it  remem- 
bered its  brother, — they  are  still  the  best  gardens 
of  any  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  my  beloved  Temple 
not  forgotten, — have  the  gravest  character, 
their  aspect  being  altogether  reverend  and  law- 
breathing, — Bacon  has  left  the  impress  of  his 
foot  upon  their  gravel  walks  ;  taking  my  after- 
noon solace  on  a  summer  day  upon  the  afore- 
said terrace,  a  comely,  sad  personage  came 
towards  me,  whom,  from  his  grave  air  and 
deportment,  I  judged  to  be  one  of  the  old 
Benchers  of  the  Inn.  He  had  a  serious,  thought- 
ful forehead,  and  seemed  to  be  in  meditations 
of  mortalit}'.  As  I  have  an  instinctive  awe  of 
old  Benchers,  I  was  passing  him  with  that  sort 


On  Some  of  tbe  ®ID  Bctora       301 

of  sub-indicative  token  of  respect  which  one  is 
apt  to  demonstrate  towards  a  venerable  stranger, 
and  which  rather  denotes  an  inclination  to 
greet  him  than  any  positive  motive  of  the  body 
to  that  effect, — a  species  of  humility  and  will- 
worship  which  I  observe,  nine  times  out  of  ten, 
rather  puzzles  than  pleases  the  person  it  is 
offered  to — when  the  face  turning  full  upon  me, 
strangely  identified  itself  with  that  of  Dodd. 
Upon  close  inspection  I  was  not  mistaken.  But 
could  this  sad,  thoughtful  countenance  be  the 
same  vacant  face  of  folly  which  I  had  hailed 
so  often  under  circumstances  of  gayety  ;  which 
I  had  never  seen  without  a  smile,  or  recognized 
but  as  the  usher  of  mirth  ;  that  looked  out  so 
formally  flat  in  Foppiugton,  so  frothily  pert  in 
Tattle,  so  impotently  busy  in  Backbite ;  so 
blankly  divested  of  all  meaning,  or  resolutely 
expressive  of  none,  in  Acres,  in  Fribble,  and  a 
thousand  agreeable  impertinences?  Was  this 
the  face,  full  of  thought  and  carefulness,  that 
had  so  often  divested  itself  at  will  of  every 
trace  of  either  to  give  me  diversion,  to  clear  my 
cloudy  face  for  two  or  three  hours  at  least  of  its 
furrows  ?  Was  this  the  face — manly,  sober,  in- 
telligent— which  I  had  so  often  despised,  made 
mocks  at,  made  merry  with  ?  The  remem- 
brance of  the  freedoms  which  I  had  taken  with 
it  came  upon  me  with  a  reproach  of  insult.     I 


302  jBsea^e  of  Blia 

could  have  asked  it  pardon.  I  thought  it 
looked  upon  me  with  a  sense  of  injury.  There 
is  something  strange  as  well  as  sad  in  seeing 
actors,  your  pleasant  fellows  particularly,  sub- 
jected to  and  suffering  the  common  lot;  their 
fortunes,  their  casualties,  their  deaths,  seems  to 
belong  to  the  scene,  their  actions  to  be  amenable 
to  poetic  justice  only.  We  can  hardly  connect 
them  with  more  awful  responsibilities.  The 
death  of  this  fine  actor  took  place  shortly  after 
this  meeting.  He  had  quitted  the  stage  some 
months,  and,  as  I  learned  afterwards,  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  resorting  daily  to  these  gardens 
almost  to  the  day  of  his  decease.  In  these 
serious  walks  probably  he  was  divesting  him- 
self of  many  scenic  and  some  real  vanities, 
weaning  himself  from  the  frivolities  of  the  les- 
ser and  the  greater  theatre,  doing  gentle  pen- 
ance for  a  life  of  no  very  reprehensible  fooleries, 
taking  off  by  degrees  the  buffoon  mask,  which 
he  might  feel  he  had  worn  too  long,  and  re- 
hearsing for  a  more  solemn  cast  of  part.  Dying, 
he  "  put  on  the  weeds  of  Dominic."  * 

If  few  can  remember  Dodd,  many  yet  living 
will  not  easily  forget  the  pleasant  creature,  who 

*  Dodd  was  a  man  of  reading,  and  left  at  his  death 
a  choice  collection  of  old  English  literature.  I  should 
judge  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  Mnt.  I  know  one  in- 
stance of  an  impromptu  which  no  length  of  study  could 
have  bettered.  My  merry  friend,  Jem  White,  had  seen 
him  one  evening  in  Aguecheek,  and  recognizing  Dodd 


On  Some  of  tbe  Ql^  Bctore       303 

in  those  days  enacted  the  part  of  the  Clown  to 
Dodd's  Sir  Andrew.  Richard,  or  rather  Dicky 
Suett, — for  so  in  his  lifetime  he  delighted  to  be 
called,  and  time  hath  ratified  the  appellation, — 
lieth  buried  on  the  north  side  of  the  cemetery 
of  Holy  Paul,  to  whose  service  his  nonage  and 
tender  years  were  dedicated.  There  are  who 
do  yet  remember  him  at  that  period, — his  pipe 
clear  and  harmonious.  He  would  often  speak 
of  his  chorister  days  when  he  w^as  "  Cherub 
Dicky." 

What  clipped  his  wings  or  made  it  expedient 
that  he  should  exchange  the  holy  for  the  pro- 
fane state  ;  whether  he  had  lost  his  good  voice 
(his  best  recommendation  to  that  ofiice),  like 
Sir  John,  '*with  hallooing  and  singing  of 
anthems";  or  whether  he  was  adjudged  to 
lack  something,  even  in  those  early  years,  of 
the  gravity  indispensable  to  an  occupation 
which  professeth  to  "  commerce  with  the 
skies," — I  could  never  rightly  learn  ;  but  we 
find  him,  after  the  probation  of  a  twelvemonth 
or  so,  reverting  to  a  secular  condition,  and  be- 
come one  of  us. 

I  think  he  was  not  altogether  of  that  timber 

the  next  day  in  Fleet  Street,  was  irresistibly  impelled 
to  take  off  his  hat  and  salute  him  as  the  identical  knight 
of  the  preceding- evening  with  a  "  Save  you,  Str  Andrew.' 
Dodd,  not  at  all  disconcerted  at  this  unusual  address 
from  a  stranger,  with  a  courteous,  half-rebuking  wave 
of  the  hand,  put  him  off  with  an  "Away,  Fool." 


304  J£06as0  ot  :£lia 


out  of  which  cathedral  seats  and  sounding- 
boards  are  hewed.  But  if  a  glad  heart — kind, 
and  therefore  glad — be  any  part  of  sanctity, 
then  might  the  robe  of  Motley,  with  which  he 
invested  himself  with  so  much  humility  after 
his  deprivation,  and  which  he  wore  so  long 
with  so  much  blameless  satisfaction  to  himself 
and  to  the  public,  be  accepted  for  a  surplice, — 
his  white  stole  and  a/de. 

The  first  fruits  of  his  secularization  was  an 
engagement  upon  the  boards  of  Old  Drury,  at 
which  theatre  he  commenced,  as  I  have  been 
told,  with  adopting  the  manner  of  Parsons  in 
old  men's  characters.  At  the  period  in  which 
most  of  us  knew  him,  he  was  no  more  an  imi- 
tator than  he  was  in  any  true  sense  himself 
imi  table. 

He  was  the  Robin  Goodfellow  of  the  stage. 
He  came  in  to  trouble  all  things  with  a  welcome 
perplexity,  himself  no  whit  troubled  for  the 
matter.  He  was  known,  like  Puck,  by  his  note, 
— Ha  /  Ha  !  Ha  !  sometimes  deepening  to  Ho  ! 
Ho !  Ho !  with  an  irresistible  accession,  de- 
rived, perhaps,  remotely  from  his  ecclesiastical 
education,  foreign  to  his  prototype  of  O  La  ! 
Thousands  of  hearts  yet  respond  to  the  chuck- 
ling O  La  !  of  Dicky  vSuett,  brought  back  to 
their  remembrance  by  the  faithful  transcript  of 
his  friend  Mathevv's  mimicry.      The  "  force  of 


©n  Some  ot  tbc  ©ID  Bctors       305 


nature  could  no  further  go."  He  drolled  upo-i 
the  stock  of  these  two  syllables  richer  than  the 
cuckoo. 

Care,  that  troubles  all  the  world,  was  forgot- 
ten in  his  composition.  Had  he  had  but  two 
grains  (nay,  half  a  grain)  of  it,  he  could  never 
have  supported  himself  upon  those  two  spider's 
strings,  which  served  him  (in  the  latter  part  of 
his  unmixed  existence)  as  legs.  A  doubt  or  a 
scruple  must  have  made  him  totter,  a  sigh  have 
pufifed  him  down  ;  the  weight  of  a  frown  had 
staggered  him,  a  wrinkle  made  him  lose  his 
balance.  But  on  he  went,  scrambling  upon 
those  airy  stilts  of  his,  with  Robin  Goodfellow, 
"through  brake,  through  briar,"  reckless  of  a 
scratched  face  or  a  torn  doublet. 

Shakespeare  foresaw  him  when  he  framed 
his  fools  and  jesters.  They  have  all  the  true 
Suett  stamp,  a  loose  and  shambling  gait,  a  slip- 
pery tongue,  this  last  the  ready  midwife  to  a 
without-pain-delivered  jest ;  in  words,  light  as 
air,  venting  truths  deep  as  the  centre ;  with 
idlest  rhymes  tagging  conceit  w'hen  busiest, 
singing  with  Lear  in  the  tempest,  or  Sir  Toby  at 
the  buttery-hatch. 

Jack  Bannister  and  he  had  the  fortune  to  be 
more  of  personal  favorites  with  the  town  than 
any  actors  before  or  after.  The  difference,  I 
take  it,  was  this  :  Jack  was  more  beloved  for  his 


3o6  jeseags  of  jeua 


sweet,  good-natured,  moral  pretensions.  Dicky 
was  more  liked  for  his  sweet,  good-natured,  no 
pretensions  at  all.  Your  whole  conscience 
stirred  with  Bannister's  performance  of  Walter 
in  the  "Children  in  the  Wood"  ;  but  Dicky 
seemed  like  a  thing  of  Love,  as  Shakespeare 
says,  too  young  to  know  what  conscience  is. 
He  put  us  into  Vesta's  days.  Evil  fled  before 
him, — not  as  from  Jack,  as  from  an  antagonist, 
— but  because  it  could  not  touch  him  any  more 
than  a  cannon-ball  a  fly.  He  was  delivered 
from  the  burden  of  that  death,  and  w^hen  death 
came  himself,  not  in  metaphor,  to  fetch  Dicky, 
it  is  recorded  of  him  by  Robert  Palmer,  who 
kindly  watched  his  exit,  that  he  received  the 
last  stroke,  neither  varying  his  accustomed 
tranquillity,  nor  tune,  with  the  simple  exclama- 
tion, worthy  to  have  been  recorded  in  his  epi- 
taph,—6>  Z  a  ./  O  La!    Bobby! 

The  elder  Palmer  (of  stage-treading  celebrity) 
commonly  played  Sir  Toby  in  those  days  ;  but 
there  is  a  solidity  of  wit  in  the  jests  of  that 
half-Falstaff"  which  he  did  not  quite  fill  out. 
He  was  as  much  too  showy  as  Moody  (who 
sometimes  took  the  part)  was  dr}-  and  sottish. 
In  sock  or  buskin  there  was  an  air  of  swaggering 
gentility  about  Jack  Palmer.  He  was  2i  gentle- 
man with  a  slight  infusion  of  tJie  footman.  His 
brother  Bob  (of  recenter  memory),  who  was  his 


®n  Some  ot  tbe  ®l^  Bctors       307 

shadow  in  every  thing  while  he  lived,  and  dwin- 
dled into  less  than  a  shadow  afterwards,  was  a 
gentleman  with  a  little  stronger  infusion  of  the 
latter  ingredient ;  that  was  all.  It  is  amazing 
how  a  little  of  the  more  or  less  makes  a  differ- 
ence in  these  things.  When  you  saw  Bobby  in 
the  Duke's  Servant^  you  said  :  "  What  a  pity 
such  a  pretty  fellow  was  only  a  servant ! ' '  When 
you  saw  Jack  figuring  in  Captain  Absolute  you 
thought  you  could  trace  his  promotion  to  some 
lady  of  quality  who  fancied  the  handsome  fellow 
in  his  topknot,  and  had  bought  him  a  com- 
mission. Therefore,  Jack  in  Dick  Amlet  was 
insuperable. 

Jack  had  two  voices,  both  plausible,  hypo- 
critical, and  insinuating :  but  his  secondary  or 
supplemental  voice  still  more  decisively  histri- 
onic than  his  common  one.  It  was  reserved  for 
the  spectator  ;  and  the  dramatis  person(Z  were 
supposed  to  know  nothing  at  all  about  it.  The 
lies  of  Young  Wilding,  and  the  sentiments  in 
Joseph  Surface,  were  thus  marked  out  in  a 
sort  of  italics  to  the  audience.  This  secret 
correspondence  with  the  company  before  the 
curtain  (which  is  the  bane  and  death  of  tragedy) 
has  an  extremely  happy  effect  in  some  kinds  of 
comedy,  in  the  more  highly  artificial  comedy, 
of  Congreve  or  of  Sheridan  especially,  where 
*  "  High  Irife  Below  Stairs." 


3o8  Be&n\!6  ot  jeUa 

the  absolute  sense  of  reality  (so  indispensable 
to  scenes  of  interest)  is  not  required,  or  would 
rather  interfere  to  diminish  your  pleasure. 
The  fact  is,  you  do  not  believe  in  such  charac- 
ters as  Surface, — the  villain  of  artificial  comedy, 
— even  while  you  read  or  see  them.  If  you 
did,  they  would  shock  and  not  divert  you. 
When  Ben,  in  "Love  for  Love,"  returns  from 
sea,  the  following  exquisite  dialogue  occurs  at 
his  first  meeting  with  his  father  : 

Sir  Sampson.  Thou  hast  been  many  a  weary  league, 
Ben,  since  I  saw  thee. 

Ben.  Ey,  ey,  been!  Been  far  enough,  an' that  be  all.— 
Well,  father,  and  how  do  all  at  home  ?  how  does  brother 
Dick,  and  brother  Val  ? 

Sir  Sampson.  Dick  !  body  o'  me,  Dick  has  been  dead 
these  two  years.  I  writ  you  word  when  you  were  at 
I^eghorn. 

Ben.  Mess,  that  's  true  ;  Marry,  I  had  forgot.  Dick's 
dead,  as  you  say,— well,  and  how  ?— I  have  a  many  ques- 
tions to  ask  you. 

Here  is  an  instance  of  insensibility  w^hich  in 
real  life  would  be  revolting,  or  rather  in  real 
life  could  not  have  coexisted  with  the  warm- 
hearted temperament  of  the  character.  But 
when  you  read  it  in  the  spirit  with  which  such 
playful  selections  and  specious  combinations 
rather  than  strict  metaphrases  of  nature  should 
be  taken,  or  when  you  saw  Bannister  play  it,  it 
neither  did,  nor  does,  wound  the  moral  sense  at 


©n  Some  ot  tbe  ©ID  Bctors       309 


all.  For  what  is  Ben — ^the  pleasant  sailor 
which  Bannister  gives  us — but  a  piece  of  satire, 
— a  creation  of  Congreve's  fancy, — a  dreamy 
combination  of  all  the  accidents  of  a  sailor's 
character, — his  contempt  of  money, — his  credu- 
lity to  women, — with  that  necessary  estrange- 
ment from  home  which  it  is  just  within  the 
verge  of  credibility  to  suppose  might  produce 
such  an  hallucination  as  is  here  described.  We 
never  think  the  worse  of  Ben  for  it,  or  feel  it  as 
a  stain  upon  his  character.  But  when  an  actor 
comes,  and  instead  of  the  delightful  phantom — 
the  creature  dear  to  half-belief — which  Bannis- 
ter exhibited, — displays  before  our  eyes  a  down- 
right concretion  of  a  Wapping  sailor — a  jolly 
warm-hearted  Jack  Tar — and  nothing  else — 
when,  instead  of  investing  it  with  a  delicious 
confusedness  of  the  head,  and  a  veering  undi- 
rected goodness  of  purpose, — he  gives  to  it  a 
downright  daylight  understanding,  and  a  full 
consciousness  of  its  actions  ;  thrusting  forward 
the  sensibilities  of  the  character  with  a  pretence 
as  if  it  stood  upon  nothing  else,  and  was  to  be 
judged  by  them  alone, — we  feel  the  discord  of 
the  thing  ;  the  scene  is  disturbed ;  a  real  man 
has  got  in  among  the  dramatis  personce,  and 
puts  them  out.  We  want  the  sailor  turned  out. 
We  feel  that  his  true  place  is  not  behind  the 
curtain,  but  in  the  first  or  second  gallery. 


Iknickcrbocher  IHiujcjct^* 


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them  without  delving  for  hidden  treasures." 

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illustrated.     Two  vols $2  50 

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gwift,  '  Gulliver's  Travels,'  " 


ii  f?nicherbocker  IRuQgete 

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Two  vols.  Selected  from  "  The  Sketch  Book," 
"Traveller,"  "  Wolfert's  Roost,"  "  Bracebridge 
Hall." $2  oo 

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lishers have  got  up  and  sent  forth  the  present  volumes — which 
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Christian  Ufiion. 

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others $i  50 

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"Probably  the  best  general  collection  of  our  ballad  litera- 
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Reprinted  from  the  early,  complete  edition.  Very 
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"  The  Baron's  stories  are  as  fascinating  as  the  Arabian 
Nights,"— C4wrf>^  Uni<?n, 


\ 


fcntcherbocker  Iftucjscts 


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A.  Sainte-Beuve $1  oo 

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Iknicherbocfter  IRugaets 


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